tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44809980818839150052024-03-12T19:06:16.770-07:00The Bernard Shaw Quotations PageA place where you can find a source for your Bernard Shaw quotations.
Requests welcome. Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.comBlogger94125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-22708016285497400532017-06-06T14:14:00.001-07:002017-06-06T14:24:12.443-07:00IF THE PRISON DOES NOT UNDERBID THE SLUM IN HUMAN MISERY, THE SLUM WILL EMPTY AND THE PRISON WILL FILL<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The other day I stumbled upon an article on the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118845387.wbeoc020/pdf" target="_blank">"Pains of Imprisonment" by a scholar based in Oslo, Norway</a>. The article (allegedly) quotes one of "Shaw's memorable phrases"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“If the prison does
not underbid the slum in human misery, the
slum will empty and the prison will fill."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Since this article did not provide a source for the quotation, and given that I could not find it in my database either, I turned to the Internet as a last resource. It did not take me long to realize that this phrase is quoted a number of times in different documents, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1986-01-07/local/me-13960_1_prison-conditions" target="_blank">from newspaper articles</a> to <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=ODcACwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA323&dq=%22If%20the%20prison%20does%20not%20underbid%20the%20slum%20in%20human%20misery%2C%20the%20slum%20will%20empty%20and%20the%20prison%20will%20fill%22&pg=PA323#v=onepage&q=%22If%20the%20prison%20does%20not%20underbid%20the%20slum%20in%20human%20misery,%20the%20slum%20will%20empty%20and%20the%20prison%20will%20fill%22&f=false" target="_blank">scholarly books</a>. Luckily for me, one of those books actually cited a source. In this doctoral dissertation on <i><a href="http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1637&context=open_access_dissertations" target="_blank">The Relationship Between Mass Incarceration andCrime in the Neoliberal Period in the United States</a></i>, the quotation is sourced as part of Shaw's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Crime-Imprisonment-Bernard-Shaw/dp/0837122880" target="_blank"><i>The Crime of Imprisonment</i> (1946)</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Shaw-Bibliography-Soho-Bibliographies/dp/0198181795" target="_blank">Dan H. Laurence's Soho Bibliography</a> lists this item (first published separately in 1925) and has something else to say about it. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie6pRYC6nuwFHj9WZ-vXZg7vGN_QsDsTTC-ogEhyHd2y_I10-NPzAyq66PMJZncYCb2btrNiNOCvmaSbf1gvuCHF-H9yrtAq0WMac0PqAzg1kueAkvIWw3iyyMGJP-9Ma2NIIInzCoUrDL/s1600/Captura1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="824" data-original-width="682" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie6pRYC6nuwFHj9WZ-vXZg7vGN_QsDsTTC-ogEhyHd2y_I10-NPzAyq66PMJZncYCb2btrNiNOCvmaSbf1gvuCHF-H9yrtAq0WMac0PqAzg1kueAkvIWw3iyyMGJP-9Ma2NIIInzCoUrDL/s640/Captura1.PNG" width="528" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now that I had the title of the book, I realized that it could not be freely available online because it had been published in 1946. However, as a preface to the Webbs' <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/englishlocalgove06webb" target="_blank">English Prisons Under Local Government</a></i> (1922), my chances were much higher. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And... bingo! <a href="https://archive.org/search.php?query=webb%20english%20local%20government" target="_blank">The Internet Archive holds copies of all the volumes in the series on English Local Government</a>. Specifically, the volume <a href="https://archive.org/stream/englishlocalgove06webb#page/n13/mode/2up" target="_blank"><i>English Prisons Under Local Government</i> contains the famous preface by Shaw and the famous words</a>: </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFrJUGsQp9Q4OJbeT5qUtsoHvqYBenQEaR9x_5_HDAiuTy-68OgfRSdeo4VoRkhCjdYidg2t2HKfQ3nUlE57pwJsmwfYx2jv9k_pTSXeI1_ZeQ5UNic7mzi95_vye1KjdoHyhyvPOMJksq/s1600/Captura.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="617" data-original-width="671" height="587" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFrJUGsQp9Q4OJbeT5qUtsoHvqYBenQEaR9x_5_HDAiuTy-68OgfRSdeo4VoRkhCjdYidg2t2HKfQ3nUlE57pwJsmwfYx2jv9k_pTSXeI1_ZeQ5UNic7mzi95_vye1KjdoHyhyvPOMJksq/s640/Captura.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In general terms, I guess this quotation may be related to a number of other works by Shaw (whether essays, speeches, or plays) where poverty is the driving force behind many of the ills of society. I'm sure each reader has their favorite one (please leave a comment about this if you will). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Because this is a very complex topic and I am not an expert on the matter, I would like to direct readers to a couple of recent publications by fellow Shavian Peter Gahan, who edited <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/618859" target="_blank">"Six Fabian Lectures on Redistribution of Income" in <i>SHAW</i> 36.1 ("Shaw and Money")</a> and, more importantly, has published <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319484419" target="_blank">a book that connects Shaw, the Webbs, and the problem of poverty and social inequality (<i>Bernard Shaw and Beatrice Webb on Poverty and Equality in the Modern World, 1905–1914</i></a><span style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319484419" target="_blank">).</a> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The day will come when both the slum and the prison will be empty. At least, I hope so. </span></div>
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-67999302130417017632017-04-03T14:35:00.000-07:002017-04-03T14:35:21.877-07:00WITHOUT ART, THE CRUDENESS OF REALITY WOULD MAKE THE WORLD UNBEARABLE<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">A couple of days ago, ISS member George Austin, from New Zealand, shared with me the following newspaper clipping: </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGb8NcZ4KABel_KIktsdlBHZOsvYuiJV8U8kVgVcSdwkF0f5qFxTsCDFGOyrnXH7DylPl71BL005uTNfS_ctPrgypVE04eo1eK9aQEaE1SuLufWDUOY-xj2wo1KjhB2hXy7ZSV3fM6lx_O/s1600/IMG_5459.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGb8NcZ4KABel_KIktsdlBHZOsvYuiJV8U8kVgVcSdwkF0f5qFxTsCDFGOyrnXH7DylPl71BL005uTNfS_ctPrgypVE04eo1eK9aQEaE1SuLufWDUOY-xj2wo1KjhB2hXy7ZSV3fM6lx_O/s400/IMG_5459.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">He told me that in his capacity as marketing person for the <a href="http://www.thamessocietyofarts.org.nz/" target="_blank">Thames Society of Arts</a>, he had chosen this Shaw quotation as the best way to synthesize why groups like theirs are so necessary in today's world. Of course, I asked for permission to reproduce the advertisement as an excuse to share the source of this quotation with you. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">As many of you may already know, this pithy sentence is originally from <a href="https://archive.org/stream/backtomethusela00shawgoog#page/n392/mode/2up" target="_blank">Part V of <i>Back to Methuselah</i>: "As Far as Thought Can Reach."</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">THE HE-ANCIENT. And you, Ecrasia: you cling to your highly artistic dolls as the noblest projections of the Life Force, do you not?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">ECRASIA. Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">That is why I thought I'd provide a few extra references by authors who have discussed this quotation in their Shaw-related scholarship. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">To begin with, several authors have included this quotation in compilations of the "wit and wisdom" of Bernard Shaw. Among them, we can mention Stephen Winsten, who used it <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Quintessence-G-B-S-Wisdom-Bernard-Shaw/dp/B000OKKHS6" target="_blank">on page 10 of his <i>The Quintessence of G.B.S.</i></a>: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Perhaps more apropos is Stanely Weintraub's discussion of the extended context of this quotation in his edited collection of Shaw's art criticism: <a href="http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-00665-X.html" target="_blank"><i>Bernard Shaw on the London Art Scene, 1885-1950</i> (p. 32-33): </a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"But Arjillax, having matured from abbreviated adolescence, "cannot pretend to be satisfied now with modelling pretty children," although the immature Ecrasia maintains with the steadfastness of youth, "Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable'" To her the She-Ancient suggests better wisdom. "Yes, child: art is the magic mirror you make to reflect your invisible dreams in visible pictures. <a href="http://shawquotations.blogspot.com.es/2014/11/you-use-glass-mirror-to-see-your-face.html" target="_blank">You use a glass mirror to see your face: you use works of art to see your soul</a>. But we who are older use neither glass mirrors nor works of art. We have a direct sense of life. When you gain that you will put aside your mirrors and statues, your toys and your dolls." Yet the art-starved Ancients are unhappy and bored, their lives long but bleak, their brave new world gained at great price."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This paragraph is also reproduced, verbatim, in the section on <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3827156" target="_blank">"Shaw in the Picture Galleríes and the Picture Galleries in Shaw's Plays" in <i>The Unexpected Shaw</i></a>, by the same author (p. 86).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Other Shaw scholars have chosen to paraphrase this quotation --without mentioning it-- in order to illustrate Shaw's stance on art at large and in relation to more pragmatic pursuits. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Michael Holroyd, for example, explains in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Shaw-One-Michael-Holroyd/dp/0375500499" target="_blank">Bernard Shaw: The One-Volume Definitive Edition</a></i> (p. 84) that in the 1880s</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A similar tension between art and 'reality' (whether it be economics or philosophy) is expressed by Charles A. Berst in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Shaw-Drama-Charles-Berst/dp/025200258X" target="_blank">Bernard Shaw and the Art of Drama</a></i> (p. xiii): </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But these notions also pervade Shaw's dramatic texts. Remember, for instance, Caesar's words (<a href="https://ohiostatepress.org/books/Book%20Pages/Adams%20Bernard.html" target="_blank">and the discussion thereof in Elise Adam's <i>Bernard Shaw and the Aesthetes</i>, p. 114</a> - full text available online):</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">All of the above should be taken as part and parcel of Shaw's philosophy. After all, as one of his characters would put it in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25484360" target="_blank"><i>Immaturity</i> (1879)</a>: </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">By the way, the "somebody" who says that life witout art (and artists) is "brutality" is probably John Ruskin. As Eric Bentley reminds us in his <a href="https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/bernard-shaw/author/eric-bentley/" target="_blank"><i>Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950</i></a> (p. 34): </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well, I hope I made these last few minutes worth the while. Because, what is life without art?</span><br />
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-43955462495901580942017-03-06T13:54:00.000-08:002017-03-06T13:54:50.205-08:00FINE ART IS THE ONLY TEACHER EXCEPT TORTURE<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes one gets carried away when browsing the Internet, and you end up reading an <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/is-the-new-whitechapel-gallery-a-modern-masterpiece-1660579.html" target="_blank">article published eight years ago</a>. In this case, the alleged Shaw quotation is one of those that, to quote the Italian dictum, "se non è vero è ben trovato." A truly Shavian turn of phrase. </span><br />
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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AUnknown_painter_-_The_Torture_of_St_Victor_-_WGA23584.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="By Unknown Master, Flemish (last quarter of the 15th century) (Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="Unknown painter - The Torture of St Victor - WGA23584" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/Unknown_painter_-_The_Torture_of_St_Victor_-_WGA23584.jpg/512px-Unknown_painter_-_The_Torture_of_St_Victor_-_WGA23584.jpg" width="512" /></a></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Indeed, it doesn't take long to confirm that the sentence in question appears in one of Shaw's plays. Well, actually, it is from the preface to one of them. <i>Misalliance</i> to be precise. <a href="http://www.sandroid.org/GutenMark/wasftp.GutenMark/MarkedTexts/bstpc10_msali10.pdf" target="_blank">You can either read the preface (and the whole play) here</a>. <a href="https://archive.org/details/BernardShawsMisallianceTheCompletePreface/01Track01.mp3" target="_blank">Or you may choose to listen to the preface in the voice of Robert Shaw here</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Whatever the case, you'll soon come across the relevant passage: </span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Art Teaching</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"By art teaching I hasten to say that I do
not mean giving children lessons in freehand
drawing and perspective. I am simply calling
attention to the fact that fine art is the only
teacher except torture. I have already pointed
out that nobody, except under threat of torture,
can read a school book. The reason is
that a school book is not a work of art. Similarly,
you cannot listen to a lesson or a sermon
unless the teacher or the preacher is an artist."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It should come as no surprise that Shaw compares education to torture, given his personal experience with formal schooling and his success as a self-taught genius. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But being the avid linguist I am, I was more interested in finding out whether Shaw resorted to drawing parallels with torture with any frequency. I wanted to shed some light on what things or issues Shaw (or his characters) compares to torture. The answer (below) may surprise you - although I hope it is more bearable than its subject matter. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="https://archive.org/stream/johnbullsotheri00shawgoog#page/n87/mode/2up/search/such+a+torture" target="_blank">To begin with, imagination is equated to torture in the words of Doyle (<i>John Bull's Other Island</i>)</a>: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: large; text-indent: -5%;">DOYLE [...]. If you want to interest him in Ireland you've got to call the unfortunate island Kathleen ni Hoolihan and pretend she's a little old woman. It saves thinking. It saves working. It saves everything except imagination, imagination, imagination; and <b><u>imagination's such a torture</u></b> that you can't bear it without whisky. [<i>With fierce shivering self-contempt</i>] At last you get that you can bear nothing real at all: you'd rather starve than cook a meal; you'd rather go shabby and dirty than set your mind to take care of your clothes and wash yourself; you nag and squabble at home because your wife isn't an angel, and she despises you because you're not a hero; and you hate the whole lot round you because they're only poor slovenly useless devils like yourself...</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: large; text-indent: -5%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: large; text-indent: -5%;"><a href="https://archive.org/stream/johnbullsotheri00shawgoog#page/n55/mode/2up/search/torture+for+which" target="_blank">Of course, it should not be forgotten that in the very preface to this play ("Preface for Politicians") </a>Shaw argues that hanging "is the least sensational form of public execution: it lacks those elements of blood and torture for which the military and bureaucratic imagination lusts."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: large; text-indent: -5%;">For precisely "blood and torture" can help us gauge a man of true military disposition, but with a classic Shavian twist. <a href="https://archive.org/stream/modernmenmummers00pearuoft#page/106/mode/2up/search/mazarin" target="_blank">As Shaw explains in a letter to Frank Harris (20 October 1916)</a>:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"There is an old story, told sometimes about Mazarin, sometimes about Richelieu, of a minister's antechamber hung with pictures: those on one side being all idyllic landscapes and scenes of domestic sentiment: those on the other scenes of battle and blood and torture. The minister, when he wanted to size up a new man, watched how he took the pictures. If he clung to the battle pictures, the minister knew that he was a timid man of peace, for whom action and daring were full of romantic fascination. If he wallowed in cottage sentiment and the Maiden's Prayer, he was immediately marked down for military preferment and [a] dangerous job."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">But once again Shaw returns to art as the ultimate form of torture. His letter to Arnold Bennett (20 October 1921) begins thus: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"My dear Bennett</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The art of pleasing an audience is a very easy one compared to the art of torturing it. Last Tuesday night the artistic torture which was the object of the style of execution adopted was inevitably mixed up with the non-artistic torture of a terrible strain of nervousness, of the mental indigestion of half assimilated parts, of bewilderment, of voices that could be steady at first only by forcing them, and of the excitement and terror of parts that felt wonderful but were quite incomprehensible. That alloy of non-artistic terror will, I hope, presently disappear, and make the difficult parts as smooth and certain as the easy parts were last night. But the artistic torture will be all the more poignant; for none of the difficulties are shirked. Strictly between ourselves, the production was hurried under financial pressure."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.sandroid.org/GutenMark/wasftp.GutenMark/MarkedTexts/mands10.pdf" style="text-indent: -5%;" target="_blank">Paradoxically, the one place that we mistakenly associate with torture is Hell, as the Devil himself reminds us</a><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -5%;">: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">THE DEVIL. [...] Hell is a place far above their comprehension: they derive their notion of it from two of the greatest fools that ever lived, an Italian and an Englishman. The Italian described it as a place of mud, frost, filth, fire, and venomous serpents: all torture.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.sandroid.org/GutenMark/wasftp.GutenMark/MarkedTexts/ndrcp10_ndrcl10.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.sandroid.org/GutenMark/wasftp.GutenMark/MarkedTexts/ndrcp10_ndrcl10.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">This may all be due to the fact that Hell (to paraphrase the popular song) is a place on Earth. After all, as Shaw intelligently argues in the preface to <i>Androcles and the Lion</i>: </span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"...we have been judging
and punishing ever since Jesus told us not
to; and I defy anyone to make out a convincing
case for believing that the world has been
any better than it would have been if there
had never been a judge, a prison, or a gallows
in it all that time. We have simply added the misery of punishment to the misery of crime,
and the cruelty of the judge to the cruelty of
the criminal. We have taken the bad man,
and made him worse by torture and degradation,
incidentally making ourselves worse in
the process. It does not seem very sensible,
does it?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">No, it doesn't.</span></div>
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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe-torture-of-prometheus-jean-louis-cesar-lair.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="By Jean-Louis-Cesar Lair (1781-1828) ([1]) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="The-torture-of-prometheus-jean-louis-cesar-lair" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/The-torture-of-prometheus-jean-louis-cesar-lair.jpg/256px-The-torture-of-prometheus-jean-louis-cesar-lair.jpg" width="310" /></a></div>
Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-42554601751669757392016-12-21T14:28:00.000-08:002016-12-21T14:28:38.274-08:00CHRISTMAS IS FORCED UPON A RELUCTANT AND DISGUSTED NATION BY THE SHOPKEEPERS AND THE PRESS<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACaricature_of_George_Bernard_Shaw.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="By Max Beerbohm [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="Caricature of George Bernard Shaw" height="640" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Caricature_of_George_Bernard_Shaw.jpg/256px-Caricature_of_George_Bernard_Shaw.jpg" width="399" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yes, my dear fellow Shavians. It's that time of the year again. The time of the year that, as Shaw put it,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Christmas is forced upon a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press; on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Needless to say, as many others will point out to you, <a href="http://www.gainesville.com/news/20161220/shayne-looper-christmas-case-of-mistaken-identity" target="_blank">Christmas as a manifestation of greed, moral corruption and consumerism is also despised by many Christians</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But this blog is solely concerned with sourcing quotations, and that's what we're going to do. The bad-tempered remark above is to be found in an article published in the <i>Saturday Review</i> (1 January 1898), entitled "Peace and Goodwill to Managers." The article is included in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Shaw-Observed-F-Dukore/dp/0271008725" target="_blank">Vol. III of <i>The Drama Observed, 1897-1911</i></a>, as well as in <i><a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=arP5PAAACAAJ&dq=the+saturday+review+1898&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y" target="_blank">Shaw's Dramatic Criticism from the Saturday Review, 1895-1898</a> </i>and <a href="https://archive.org/stream/dramaticopinions02shawrich#page/392/mode/2up" target="_blank"><i>Dramatic Opinions and Essays</i> (Vol. II), this one available online.</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The "rant" against Christmas that opens the article is, in fact, a little longer than the quotation above. It reads: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"I am sorry to have to introduce the subject of Christmas in these articles. It is an indecent subject; a cruel, gluttonous subject; a drunken, disorderly subject; a wasteful, disastrous subject; a wicked, cadging, lying, filthy, blasphemous, and demoralizing subject. Christmas is forced on a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press: on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred; and anyone who looked back to it would be turned into a pillar of </span><span style="font-size: large;">greasy sausages."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This quotation has been used by some authors to illustrate Shaw's well-known dislike for Christmas and the celebrations it conventionally involves. For example, Hesketh Pearson quotes this passage in two of his biographical volumes: <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/GBS-Length-Portrait-Hesketh-PEARSON/dp/B001YK7LQ6" target="_blank">G.B.S.: A Full Length Portrait</a></i> (p. 146) and <a href="https://www.abebooks.co.uk/Bernard-Shaw-Biography-Hesketh-Pearson-MacDonald/16125519169/bd" target="_blank">Bernard Shaw: A Biography</a> (p. 176). </span></div>
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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGeorge_Bernard_Shaw%2C_his_life_and_works%3B_a_critical_biography_(authorized)_(1911)_(14595271509).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Por Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], undefined"><img alt="George Bernard Shaw, his life and works; a critical biography (authorized) (1911) (14595271509)" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/George_Bernard_Shaw%2C_his_life_and_works%3B_a_critical_biography_%28authorized%29_%281911%29_%2814595271509%29.jpg/512px-George_Bernard_Shaw%2C_his_life_and_works%3B_a_critical_biography_%28authorized%29_%281911%29_%2814595271509%29.jpg" width="512" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This, of course, is not the only passage by Shaw where one gets an idea of how much he truly "hated" Christmas. Some are even harsher, like the fragment from one of his pieces of music criticism (<i>Music in London, 1890-94 </i>Vol. III, p. 113. 20 December 1893):</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Like all intelligent people, I greatly dislike Christmas. It revolts me to see a whole nation refrain from music for weeks together in order that every man may rifle his neighbour's pockets under cover of a ghastly general pretence of festivity. It is really an atrocious institution, this Christmas. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We must be gluttonous because it is Christmas. We must be drunken because it is Christmas. We must be insincerely generous; we must buy things that nobody wants, and give them to people we don't like; we must go to absurd entertainments, that make even our little children satirical; we must writhe under venal officiousness from legions of freebooters, all because it is Christmas - that is, because the mass of the population, including the all powerful middle class tradesmen, depend on a week of licence and brigandage, waste and intemperance to clear off its outstanding liabilities at the end of the year. As for me, I shall fly from it all tomorrow or next day to some remote spot miles from a shop, where nothing worse can befall me than a serenade from a few peasants, or some equally harmless survival of medieval mummery, shyly proffered, not advertised, moderate in its expectations, and soon over. In town there is, for the moment, nothing for me or any honest man to do."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But all Shaw quotations are not quite complete without their share of anti-climax. However, since the author does not supply the anti-climax this time, I guess circumstances will. That is the only explanation I find for <a href="https://dublin.ie/whats-on/listings/the-bernard-shaw-christmas-flea-market/" target="_blank">The Bernard Shaw Christmas Flea Market</a>, of course. </span></div>
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-81625063870491199472016-10-27T13:49:00.000-07:002016-10-27T13:49:37.161-07:00ANYBODY CAN MAKE A BEGINNING: THE DIFFICULTY IS TO MAKE AN END - TO DO WHAT CANNOT BE BETTERED<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Just the other day I was turning over the pages of <i><a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=-bEODAAAQBAJ&lpg" target="_blank">Music in the Air: The Selected Writings of Ralph J. Gleason</a></i>, when I realized that he quotes Shaw twice in two different articles: one about <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=-bEODAAAQBAJ&lpg=PT110&vq=%22cannot%20be%20bettered%22&pg=PT110#v=snippet&q=%22anybody%20can%20make%20a%20beginning%22&f=false" target="_blank">blues guitarist and singer B.B. King</a> and another on <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=-bEODAAAQBAJ&lpg=PT110&vq=%22cannot%20be%20bettered%22&pg=PT110#v=snippet&q=%22cannot%20be%20bettered%22&f=false" target="_blank">Jazz trumpetist Louis Armstrong</a>. On both occasions, the quotations read more or less the same, something along the lines that "anybody can make a beginning."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Although no source is provided -and the wording is slightly different- in either case, I thought these words were likely to come from one of Shaw's critical pieces on music. Bingo!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://archive.org/download/MusicInLondon18901894Vol1/MusicInLondon18901894Vol1.tif" target="_blank">The first volume of <i>Music in London</i> (1890-1894)</a> contains an article dated 9 December 1891 in which he criticizes another form of "bardolatry" during Mozart's centenary. As he says in the second paragraph, "The word is, of course, Admire, admire, admire." But Shaw refuses to simply please his readers and remains aware of the fact that many Mozart </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"...worshippers cannot bear to be told that their hero was not the founder of a dynasty. But in art the highest success is to be the last of your race, not the first. Anybody, almost, can make a beginning: the difficulty is to make an end—to do what cannot be bettered."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This piece, because it includes Dickens among other artists who were the last of their generation, is also quoted in the introduction to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3208313?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank">Dan H. Laurence and Martin Quinn's <i>Shaw on Dickens</i></a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Needless to say, another thing that struck me - although it should come as no surprise - is that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_J._Gleason" target="_blank">this jazz and pop music critic</a> was indeed familiar with Shaw's music criticism. It amazes me to think of how influential Shaw has been and remains to be in so many fields and for so long. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But to return to the dichotomy of beginnings and ends in art, readers may wish perhaps to learn that this is not the only time that Shaw used the same rhetorical parallelism - although in a rather different sense and spere. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In his lecture "The Simple Truth about Socialism," included -among other works- in <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000960108" target="_blank">Louis Crompton's <i>The Road to Equality</i> (pp. 155-194)</a>, Shaw argues that "we must improve the nation if we are to improve its institutions"; in other words, that we must strive to produce the "Superman" before attempting any profound socio-political reform. This idea, however, is not devoid of problems for</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"The Eugenic Society feels quite sure, apparently, that it can <b><u>make a beginning</u></b> by at least breeding out tuberculosis, epilepsy, dipsomania, and lunacy; but for all we know to the contrary, the Superman may be tuberculous from top to toe; he is quite likely to be a controlled epileptic; his sole diet may be overproof spirit; and he will certainly be as mad as a hatter from our point of view. We really know nothing about him. Our worst failures today may be simply first attempts at him, and our greatest successes the final perfection of the type that is passing away. Under these circumstances there is nothing to be done in the way of a stud farm. We must trust to nature: that is, to the fancies of our males and females. No doubt some of the fancies are morbid; but they must all have some meaning: that is, some purpose; and the purpose must he in the main a vital one, or it would hardly have survived. At all events, that is the best we can make of the situation."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Given the previous opinion on what it means to "make a beginning," it seems quite clear that Shaw is renouncing eugenics at this stage -be it because it is immoral or impractical. Shaw's interest in and discussion of eugenics and its methods, however, are multifaceted, so I won't go beyond recommending the most recent book I know of that covers this topic: <i><a href="http://www.palgrave.com/la/book/9781137330192" target="_blank">Bernard Shaw and Totalitarianism: Longing for Utopia.</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This blog, alas, can only make a beginning. </span></div>
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-63145924069642101942016-10-16T13:37:00.000-07:002016-10-16T13:46:05.121-07:00THE MOST COSTLY BOOKS DERIVE THEIR VALUE FROM THE CRAFT OF THE PRINTER AND NOT FROM THE AUTHOR'S GENIUS<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">A few months ago I came across a new bibliographical reference - almost by chance - of which I knew very little at first: only that its title was "Well Printed Books." Upon further investigation I found out that the item in question was not a book or an article, but rather a piece of art. More specifically, one by Tara McLeod (http://peartreepress.co.nz/), a "hand-print book-maker" based in New Zealand. Among his works, there is <a href="http://peartreepress.co.nz/work/well-printed-books" target="_blank">a beautiful broadsheet of a Shaw quotation that reads</a>: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Well printed books are just as scarce as well written ones, and every author should remember that the most costly books derive their value from the craft of the printer and not from the author's genius."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I must admit I fell in love with the quotation, as well as with the quality of the printing and typesetting - to the extent that I went to great lengths to get one of the few copies available at the <a href="http://natlib.govt.nz/" target="_blank">National Library of New Zealand</a> (thanks are due to their staff, who went beyond their duty to make this possible). Here is what the framed piece looks like on my office wall. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFI1fzTddKoaPBtZbeCzUon2snITRw_5fGbQFDoNVi_6p-ZNxzSoobWPh0pYNLAVrcQL23GPFwewJIsNtKom4zqpSZzfvfqGjWK2uJ1dOfMS4uGn0e5-2fiCBoY5sf_pe1_fHGM6IjctGM/s1600/IMG_20161016_205316.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFI1fzTddKoaPBtZbeCzUon2snITRw_5fGbQFDoNVi_6p-ZNxzSoobWPh0pYNLAVrcQL23GPFwewJIsNtKom4zqpSZzfvfqGjWK2uJ1dOfMS4uGn0e5-2fiCBoY5sf_pe1_fHGM6IjctGM/s640/IMG_20161016_205316.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Initially, this piece was commissioned by the National Library Of New Zealand in 2015 for their exhibition “<a href="http://nationallibrarysociety.org.nz/the-book-beautiful/" target="_blank">The Book Beautiful</a>,” which <a href="https://natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/the-book-beautiful" target="_blank">seems to have been worth a visit</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, as you probably have guessed by now, this post is actually meant to find out more about the source and context of the quotation. Well, wait no more. These words belong to <a href="https://archive.org/stream/bernardshawonmod00shawrich#page/n9/mode/2up" target="_blank">Shaw's essay "On Modern Typography,</a>" which opens with a note of gratitude "to the printer, and the printer's reader" and ends on "the moral of what I have been saying," summed up in the above quotation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Of course, by the reverse token, printers who do not do their job professionally - as it apparently happened with some page proofs of <i>The Devil's Disciple</i> (<i>Collected Letters, 1898-1910,</i> p. 226), "should be boiled down into tallow forthwith & sold for what he will fetch." This passage can also be read in the more recent <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=geHLZmP9VXUC&lpg=PA62&ots=6QB8FAqj2W&dq=%22into%20tallow%20forthwith%22&pg=PA62#v=onepage&q=%22into%20tallow%20forthwith%22&f=false" target="_blank"><i>Bernard Shaw and His Publishers</i>, edited by Michel W. Pharand.</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Although most Shavians know of Shaw's interest in printing and typesetting - and practically every other process involved in publishing a book - is won't hurt anybody to remind readers of how this interest was <a href="http://www.morrissociety.org/publications/JWMS/01.1Winter1961/W61.StokesJr.pdf" target="_blank">spurred by his friendship with William Morris</a>. </span></div>
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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGeorge_Frederic_Watts_portrait_of_William_Morris_1870.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="George Frederic Watts [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="George Frederic Watts portrait of William Morris 1870" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/George_Frederic_Watts_portrait_of_William_Morris_1870.jpg/512px-George_Frederic_Watts_portrait_of_William_Morris_1870.jpg" width="512" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And one gets a pretty accurate idea of how serious Shaw was about the whole printing business when one reads his <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=geHLZmP9VXUC&lpg=PP1&dq=bernard%20shaw%20and%20his%20publishers&pg=PA49#v=onepage&q=%22as%20some%20printers%22&f=false" target="_blank">letter to Grant Richards (9th September 1898) </a>with the detailed specifications for the forthcoming edition of <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/perfect_wagnerite_1107_librivox" target="_blank">The Perfect Wagnerite</a></i>: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"If you choose the big type (as I anticipate from your letter you are likely to) then you must impress upon Clark that every defect in the printing will be ten times more glaring with the larger than with the smaller. There must be no holes and rivers of white patching the page. As a first step to attain this, the huge gaps left at the beginnings of each sentence on the sample page must be vehemently forbidden. The spaces between the words must be kept as narrow and even as possible: it is better to divide words at the end of the line with hyphens than to spoil the line by excessive spacing merely to “justify” without dividing, as some printers make a point of doing. There should be no greater space between the point at the end of a sentence and the capital, than between the last letter of one word and the first of the next within the sentence. In short, the color of the block of printing should be as even as possible. The printing of the sample couldn’t possibly be worse in this respect."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I guess I could quote a hundred other examples, but readers can delve into any of the sources cited here and find many more for themselves; although you may choose to start with Joseph R. Dunlap's interesting survey of these matters published in <i>The Shavian</i> 2.3 (1961, pp. 4-15), fittingly entitled "The Typographical Shaw: GBS and the Revival of Printing." The full text of the article was also published in <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015036736893?urlappend=%3Bseq=578" target="_blank"><i>The Bulletin of the New York Public Library</i> (Oct. 1960), which you can also read below</a>. </span></div>
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-87578546472006077222016-09-25T15:54:00.001-07:002016-09-25T15:58:50.838-07:00TWO COUNTRIES SEPARATED BY A COMMON? LANGUAGE<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">A couple of days ago a dear friend asked me if the oft-quoted line "the British and Americans are two peoples separated by a common language..." was actually something Shaw had coined. This quip, and slightly altered versions thereof, has been attributed to Shaw - often by illustrious people who actually met him. For example, <i>The Shavian</i> 6.5 (Spring 1987) includes a brief note that reads as follows: </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP_G3f7rr9pP8FIxuqlrR2VOffC10fgu5piUfNNOYtTtlX9nYo3xWnSwmb3Q56IKgScRM1FTmhC9Nym4hF9ybm3il1SFcbfUQSST_v-y4GFoHsrHvmv3f0vTLxdRyKqa4jl6GVxt18lUgs/s1600/Captura.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP_G3f7rr9pP8FIxuqlrR2VOffC10fgu5piUfNNOYtTtlX9nYo3xWnSwmb3Q56IKgScRM1FTmhC9Nym4hF9ybm3il1SFcbfUQSST_v-y4GFoHsrHvmv3f0vTLxdRyKqa4jl6GVxt18lUgs/s640/Captura.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, as the excellent, informative post by <a href="http://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/04/03/common/" target="_blank">The Quote Investigator</a> demonstrates, chances are Shaw never uttered those words; or, at least, as my own database seems to suggest, there is no reliable, extant record of the when and where. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Given the futility of my sleuthing, I thought it would be a good idea to go over a few passages where Shaw refers to or comments on the English spoken in America - mind you, a rather different version of the language than the one we hear today; and far from being a single, unified variety for that matter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Differences in semantics and usage between American and British English, for example, could have arguably confused visitors of the <a href="http://photoseed.com/highlights/the-photographic-salons-of-the-british-linked-ring-brotherhood/" target="_blank">1902 photographic exhibitions of the Linked Ring and the Royal Photographic Society</a>. Shaw did not have a high opinion of one of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Steichen" target="_blank">Edward Steichen's</a> works, but...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"To make matters worse, Mr. Steichen actually labels the lady with the cat in the American language. He calls her a "nude." This may be American modesty; but in English the adjective is only used substantively by old-fashioned dealers to denote a naughty French picture. This use of the word is also exemplified on the books entitled Nudes from the Paris Salon. Consequently English artists use the term Life Study, which is more accurate descriptively, and better grammar to boot." (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Shaw-Photography-Essays-Photographs/dp/1853361070" target="_blank"><i>Bernard Shaw on Photography</i>, p. 88</a>)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A working knowledge, then, of the differences between these two varieties of English is a good thing. Shaw seems to corroborate this notion in his review of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._G._Wills" target="_blank"><i>Olivia</i> (by W. G. Wills)</a>, published in the <i>Saturday Review</i> on 6 Feb. 1897. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Its success, if it does succeed, will be due mainly to the acting of Miss Cicely Richards, who pulls it through with great ability, seconded effectively by Mr Cockburn. Miss Esme Beringer's impersonation of the heroine, though altogether artificial, is clever; and Mr Courtenay Thorpe manages to play with some distinction as the father. Mr Abingdon is a comic American interviewer; but the part is beneath criticism. Besides, <u>Mr Abingdon has no command of the American language</u>." (<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Shaw-Drama-Observed-Volumes/dp/B01CR60I10/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474840681&sr=1-1&keywords=the+drama+observed+volume+ii" target="_blank">The Drama Observed</a></i>. Vol. II, p. 771).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is not the only critical piece by Shaw where we find a reference to "the American language" as a simple way to sketch the idiolect of a performer, somewhat derisively. In <a href="https://archive.org/stream/musicinlondonvol017003mbp#page/n239/mode/2up" target="_blank"><i>Music in London</i> (Vol. II, p. 236</a>), a similar descriptive use of the phrase is made </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">An American accent, in addition, does not guarantee a comfortable living - although the opposite is also true. See, for example, the following extract from one of Shaw's letters to Charlotte (31st Oct. 1897): </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"There is a young American musician-a Philadelphian genius-the only American I ever met without an American accent-at present starving in Paris in the usual way. His name is Philip Dalmas..." (<i>Collected Letters, 1874-1897</i>, p. 818)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is also true, nevertheless, that one can never be too sure about Shaw's real opinion on this question. Let us be reminded of the anecdote included in Allan Chappelow's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shaw-Villager-Human-Being-Biographical/dp/028439176X" target="_blank"><i>Shaw the Villager and Human Being - A Biographical Symposium</i> (pp. 217-218)</a>: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Another time I criticised a radio performance of <i>Saint Joan</i> in which the part of St. Joan had been played by an actress with a pronounced American accent. Shaw just roared with laughter, but later told me he had telephoned the B.B.C. about it and told them he did not hear the broadcast himself, but had been told that the actress was wonderful ! That was typical of G.B.S.-you never really knew how he was going to react."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">After all, Homer also nods and Shaw - who was chewed out by a listener because of his "slovenly pronunciation" during a broadcast talk - entertained certain American idiosyncrasies in pronunciation. The following fragment, for example, can be read in <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=HLpRc3rm5b8C&lpg=PA1914&dq=bernard%20shaw%20and%20the%20bbc&pg=PT55#v=onepage&q=slovenly&f=false" target="_blank">L.W. Connoly's <i>Bernard Shaw and the BBC</i> (an adapted version was published in "Shaw and BBC English" in <i>The Independent Shavian</i> 42.3 (2004): </a></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdX3sUdeiBiYVYhyRHLGRHHUjAYJFUpc9PNJsrQJKXzB1coqlf9A4XknDlzay-XMwCJjpelbxycRUftjGNVvh97t2fi1JLP0RnlqRjkLXLKRdAamvSwcpZSycNnmgRvnQ2TBbR1KFZunYw/s1600/Captura2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdX3sUdeiBiYVYhyRHLGRHHUjAYJFUpc9PNJsrQJKXzB1coqlf9A4XknDlzay-XMwCJjpelbxycRUftjGNVvh97t2fi1JLP0RnlqRjkLXLKRdAamvSwcpZSycNnmgRvnQ2TBbR1KFZunYw/s640/Captura2.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This does not mean that Shaw did not know his American English - quite the contrary. However, some critics beg to differ - however misinformed their claim is. As David Matual points out in his "<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/40681061?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank">Shaw's The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet and Tolstoy's The Power of Darkness: Dramatic Kinship and Theological Opposition" (<i>SHAW</i> 1, p. 129)</a>, critics like H.L. Mencken "ridicule Shaw's inept reproduction of what he imagined to be American English."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At any rate, I believe what best summarizes Shaw's views on the power of language and what it means in a holistic sense (social, economic, literary, ritualistic) is his response to an adaptation of <i>Hamlet</i> in "contemporary American English" by Irvin Fiske: </span></div>
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-78468342572399351432016-06-05T15:15:00.002-07:002016-06-05T15:15:54.557-07:00NEW ZEALAND: "THE BEST COUNTRY I'VE BEEN IN."<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Bernard Shaw's words (whether apocryphal or not) are often used in today's tourism industry to advertise different places he visited. See, for example, <a href="http://shawquotations.blogspot.com.es/2015/12/a-few-days-ago-iss-president-michael.html">the letter about Skellig Michael (Ireland)</a> that we discussed here; <a href="http://www.villaklaic-dubrovnik.com/dubrovnik">or the oft-quoted compliment about Dubrovnik</a>. But perhaps the highest compliment he paid to a location were the parting words as he finished his tour of New Zealand: "It's the best country I've been in." </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is, at least, what many different sources claim. <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=4ZvDS2ctPNEC&lpg=PA179&ots=4-3NJgKlMb&dq=bernard%20shaw%20new%20zealand%20%22best%20country%22&pg=PA179#v=snippet&q=%22famous%20writer%20george%20bernard%22&f=false" target="_blank">Martin Parker, in his article "New Zealand or Aotearoa - A Confused Culture"</a> mentions this quotation; similarly, <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=n8bFQRox4ikC&lpg=PR11&ots=lpj6VxfZuO&dq=bernard%20shaw%20new%20zealand%20%22best%20country%22&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=%22bernard%20shaw%22&f=false" target="_blank">this guide on <i>Going to Live in New Zealand</i></a> also entices prospective visitors with Shaw's words. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Shavian sources mention this anecdote as well, and they all coincide that Shaw praised New Zealand in superlative terms as he was boarding the cruiser that would take him back to England. Perhaps the most detailed account of his visit that is freely available online is <a href="https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/jnzs/article/viewFile/268/194" target="_blank">Isidor Saslav's article in the <i>Stout Centre Review, </i>which also includes this parting eulogy</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In a very interesting, succint discussion, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Shaw-One-Michael-Holroyd/dp/0375500499" target="_blank">Michael Holroyd (<i>Bernard Shaw: The One-Volume Definitive Edition</i>, p. 670)</a> expands on the reasons behind Shaw's like for New Zealand: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"After crossing the sea to what Mark Twain had called ‘Junior England’, Shaw experienced something of what Trollope had found the previous century - ‘You are, as it were, next door to your own house.’ So New Zealand came to suggest an idealized Ireland. ‘If I were beginning life, I am not sure that I would not start in New Zealand,’ he said. ‘ . . . I, being an old Victorian, am much more at home here than in London. You are quite natural to me . . .’ Such tributes suggest a mirage reflecting what his life might have been like in another Ireland without a tearful childhood and the divisive violence of Irish politics. ‘If I showed my true feelings I would cry,’ he told a photographer on board the Rangitane who had asked him to give his brightest smile on leaving New Zealand: ‘it’s the best country I’ve been in.’"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">If, however, we focus on the exact source of these words, all researchers provide the same answer: an article in <i>The Dominion</i>, dated 16 April 1934. For example, <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=w_m9CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP2&ots=Kvp976SmOh&dq=bernard%20shaw%20new%20zealand%20%22best%20country%22&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=shaw&f=false">Julie Fry and Hayden Glass quote this article</a> in their book <i>Going Places: Migration, Economics and the Future of New Zealand</i>. Even better, <a href="http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/167124" target="_blank">the compilation <i>What I Said in N.Z.: The Newspaper Utterances of Mr. George Bernard Shaw in New Zealand</i> (p. 29)</a> reproduces the whole article. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you wish to read more about what Shaw was reported as saying during his visit to New Zealand, you may peruse <a href="http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast" target="_blank">the excellent digital repository of newspapers of the National Library of New Zealand</a>. I have taken the liberty of selecting one in particular, <a href="http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=NZH19340416.2.109&e=16-04-1934-18-04-1934--10--11----0bernard+shaw--" target="_blank">where Shaw states that "the trouble about New Zealand is that it is too pleasing a place."</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At any rate, although it goes without saying that New Zealand is one of the natural paradises on earth, I would like to finish this post with another country that Shaw held in high esteem, one should think. Specifically, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shaw-Letters-Bernard-Collected/dp/0670821098" target="_blank">Dan H. Laurence, in the introduction to the second part (1931-1936) of his fourth volume of collected letters, writes</a>: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"When their second world cruise ended in 1936, the Shaws disembarked for what GBS may by then have realised would be the last time. Asked by a journalist, "After visiting twenty-nine countries, what do you think would be the best country to live in?" Shaw's succinct reply was, "I should say Heaven."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">New Zealand or Heaven? You make the call. </span></div>
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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGeorge_Bernard_Shaw_and_Sir_Joseph_James_Kinsey.jpg" title="By Photographer unidentified (http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22899021) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="George Bernard Shaw and Sir Joseph James Kinsey" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/George_Bernard_Shaw_and_Sir_Joseph_James_Kinsey.jpg/512px-George_Bernard_Shaw_and_Sir_Joseph_James_Kinsey.jpg" width="512" /></a>
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-6904696011140118182016-05-10T14:25:00.003-07:002016-05-10T14:25:32.652-07:00REVOLUTIONS HAVE NEVER LIGHTENED THE BURDEN OF TYRANNY. THEY HAVE ONLY SHIFTED IT TO ANOTHER SHOULDER. <div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Although this is a well-known quotation for most Shavians, I must admit that I felt compelled to write about it when I found it in an article in an edited volume entitled <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=f9f7CwAAQBAJ&lpg" target="_blank"><i>The State of Social Progress of Islamic Societies</i> (p. 572)</a>. The world Shaw lived in saw its fair share of revolutions, and the world today seems to be headed in a similar direction, especially in some Islamic societies. It should come as no surprise, then, that this should be the closing words of the foreword to <i><a href="http://www.bartleby.com/157/5.html" target="_blank">The Revolutionist’s Handbook and Pocket Companion</a>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And it is precisely the disparity between what those words meant for Shaw and his readers in the context of <i><a href="https://archive.org/stream/mansupermancomed00shawrich#page/n7/mode/2up" target="_blank">Man and Superman</a></i> and how they have been used by different people afterwards that I would like to illustrate today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This fragment has been quoted by several Shaw critics, although each of them has used it to exemplify a rather different aspect. So, for example, <a href="http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/englbooks/49/" target="_blank">Richard M. Ohmann (<i>Shaw: The Style and the Man</i>)</a> makes a purely stylistic claim when he argues that this is one of the many examples where </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"...Shaw frequently compounds the structure of a whole piece from a set of negations. Take that quintessence of Shavianism, “The Revolutionist’s Handbook.” After a preface concluding that “Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny” (italics mine), John Tanner’s first chapter outlines the need for controlled breeding, but in doing so it begins with a denial that transfiguration of institutions is evermore than change from Tweedledum to Tweedledee, and ends with a warning that the goal of breeding must be neither a race of mindless athletes nor a race of Sunday School prigs."</span></div>
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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APrise_de_la_Bastille.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Jean-Pierre Houël [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="Prise de la Bastille" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/Prise_de_la_Bastille.jpg/512px-Prise_de_la_Bastille.jpg" width="512" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">H.P. Hackett (<i><a href="https://archive.org/stream/shawgeorgeversus00hack#page/152/mode/2up" target="_blank">Shaw: George versus Bernard</a></i>), in turn, focuses on how <i><a href="https://archive.org/stream/mansupermancomed00shawrich#page/n7/mode/2up" target="_blank">Man and Superman</a></i> reveals itself as a major turning point in Shaw's philosophy, or rather, that by then </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"He was summing up the results of twenty years' experience as a reformer, confessing failure of the old method, and trying for a new one. He looked back and said that reforms were useless till man had reformed himself, and looked forward and said that man couldn't reform himself till the Life Force had reformed him. He cleared the decks of everything else in a single sweep—or rather in a series of them called a Preface, a Philosophy, and a Revolutionist's Handbook. He did it with that magnificent openness and thoroughness which is the joy and despair of his biographers—for it gives them the fullest inside information about him, and yet when they try to present it to the public, they find that it was all so much better in the original."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Outside the Shavian circles, however, there has been a motley corpus of appropriations of this quotation - sometimes stretching its original sense beyond recognition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So, for example, we find wild claims such as the argument found in <i><a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=CugDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA8&dq=%22revolutions%20have%20never%20lightened%22&pg=PA8#v=onepage&q=%22revolutions%20have%20never%20lightened%22&f=false" target="_blank">Competition Science Vision</a></i> that "having seen the iron-curtain of Stalin after the 1917 Revolution, the great English dramatist G.B. Shaw gave this lucid comment that 'Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny..." Either Shaw mastered time travel or I fail to see how this is even possible. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Some other times (<i><a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=Mx6vKWhzVrgC&lpg=PA232&dq=%22revolutions%20have%20never%20lightened%22&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=%22revolutions%20have%20never%20lightened%22&f=false" target="_blank">The New Management: Democracy and Enterprise are Transforming Organizations</a></i>), the quotation is used as a foreboding, gloomy summary of historical evolution, without taking into consideration the ability of humankind to evolve, according to Shaw. So, for Halal</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"By embracing the icon of capitalism held up by the West, communism has shed its old ideology only to submit to a new ideology. Many Russians bitterly condemn the blind faith in capitalism that now imprisons them as badly as communism used to. George Bernard Shaw put it best: Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny..."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Others have used Shaw's words to summarize the corrpution of the ideals of the French Revolution and the age of Enlightenment. Take, for instance, this passage from <i><a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=O00XBAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA224&dq=%22revolutions%20have%20never%20lightened%22&pg=PA224#v=onepage&q=%22revolutions%20have%20never%20lightened%22&f=false" target="_blank">Violence: The Enduring Problem</a></i>; or the opening quotation in Chapter III of <i><a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=scol2bmXUsEC&lpg=PA369&dq=%22revolutions%20have%20never%20lightened%22&pg=PA369#v=onepage&q=%22revolutions%20have%20never%20lightened%22&f=false" target="_blank">A Cultural History of the Modern Age Vol. 2: Baroque, Rococo and Enlightenment</a></i>. The bottomline is usually the same and I believe it neglects another key passage from <i>The Revolutionist's Handbook </i>that underscores where the real revolution lies: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Our only hope, then, is in evolution. We must replace the man by the superman. It is frightful for the citizen, as the years pass him, to see his own contemporaries so exactly reproduced by the younger generation, that his companions of thirty years ago have their counterparts in every city crowd, where he had to check himself repeatedly in the act of saluting as an old friend some young man to whom he is only an elderly stranger. All hope of advance dies in his bosom as he watches them: he knows that they will do just what their fathers did, and that the few voices which will still, as always before, exhort them to do something else and be something better, might as well spare their breath to cool their porridge (if they can get any). Men like Ruskin and Carlyle will preach to Smith and Brown for the sake of preaching, just as St Francis preached to the birds and St Anthony to the fishes. But Smith and Brown, like the fishes and birds, remain as they are; and poets who plan Utopias and prove that nothing is necessary for their realization but that Man should will them, perceive at last, like Richard Wagner, that the fact to be faced is that Man does not effectively will them. And he never will until he becomes Superman."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, ascertaining what <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=LIQXftRkCf8C&lpg=PA359&dq=superman%20ubermensch&pg=PA359#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Shaw, Wagner, Nietzsche, and everybody else in the history of ideas might mean by "Superman"</a> will have to wait for another day. </span></div>
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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AA_staunch_magistrate_surprised_by_the_apparition_of_a_radica_Wellcome_V0011360.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="See page for author [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="A staunch magistrate surprised by the apparition of a radica Wellcome V0011360" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/A_staunch_magistrate_surprised_by_the_apparition_of_a_radica_Wellcome_V0011360.jpg/512px-A_staunch_magistrate_surprised_by_the_apparition_of_a_radica_Wellcome_V0011360.jpg" /></a></div>
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-24024779555217212032016-04-24T13:12:00.000-07:002016-04-24T13:12:19.299-07:00THE ADORATION OF FOOLS IS BAD FOR THE SOUL<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Yesterday, as I was doing some research on how the concept of madness has evolved throughout history (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Madness-society-Chapters-historical-sociology/dp/0226726401/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461527256&sr=1-1&keywords=%22madness+in+society%22+rosen" target="_blank">hands down, my first recommended reading would be this</a>), I found an online blog entry entitled <a href="https://galesmind.com/2015/04/04/vanity-a-cautionary-tale/" target="_blank">"Vanity: a cautionary tale." The text, lo and behold, ends with "the wise words of George Bernard Shaw.</a>"</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglzKQ4VWcLtEAkPuw55myDWkv9p8Cg-Tglh5kCh6RpdlzkdBpeUx2g4Hx90upoW9m9HvvVfZx-pbCP5LJuO2PE4F60zZ-yn0d-g-YRj9SVWs_yMuik6109XQybMW4fbAIJuNuBcE2EYxz_/s1600/Para+el+Blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglzKQ4VWcLtEAkPuw55myDWkv9p8Cg-Tglh5kCh6RpdlzkdBpeUx2g4Hx90upoW9m9HvvVfZx-pbCP5LJuO2PE4F60zZ-yn0d-g-YRj9SVWs_yMuik6109XQybMW4fbAIJuNuBcE2EYxz_/s400/Para+el+Blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The quotation, of course, caught my eye; especially because it seemed to be connected to my previous post <a href="http://shawquotations.blogspot.com.es/2016/04/the-difference-between-effective-part.html">about the different acting skills of Duse and Bernhardt</a>. In other words, Shaw seems to appreciate above all else what is left of one after the good looks and the make-up fade; what is true, truly ours. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">These words, as usual with Shaw, leave no reader indifferent, but I felt I really needed to find the source because they would be interpreted differently depending on who is the recipient of Shaw's adoration. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well, as it turns out it was Mrs. Patrick Campbell who deserved such an eloquent praise - as many of you may have guessed. The letter was sent from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britannia_Adelphi_Hotel">Midland Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool</a>, and it was dated 23rd October, 1912. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you want to read the whole letter, you may turn to <a href="https://archive.org/stream/mylifesomelett00camp#page/252/mode/2up">page 252 of My Life and Some Letters, by Mrs. Campbell herself (the letter begins on the previous page)</a>. The letter was also included in their collected correspondence, (<a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/bernard-shaw-and-mrs-patrick-campbell-their-correspondence/oclc/802619/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true">Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell: Their Correspondence</a>). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Shaw wrote this letter after Stella had come down with some unspecified illness that induced high fevers and severe headaches. That must have been the reason why, a week later, in an annotation to one of Shaw's letters, she records: "He came and read me <a href="https://archive.org/stream/androclesandlio02shawgoog#page/n10/mode/2up">Androcles</a>. I was really too ill to listen, and it nearly killed me..." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And they say literature is good for you!</span></div>
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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMrs_Patrick_Campbell_Hollyer.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Por F Hollyer [Public domain], undefined"><img alt="Mrs Patrick Campbell Hollyer" height="276" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Mrs_Patrick_Campbell_Hollyer.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-17284215080198138152016-04-18T15:11:00.003-07:002016-04-18T15:11:25.498-07:00THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN EFFECTIVE PART AND A WELL PLAYED ONE; OR, DUSE AND BERNHARDT.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">It wasn't long ago that I found a <a href="https://nekropole.info/en/Eleonora-Duse">brief online biography of Italian actress Eleonora Duse</a>. The biography made reference to how Shaw "gave his nod to Duse" in her unspoken rivalry of years with Sarah Bernhardt. Shaw praised Duse, we read, "in an adamant oratory quoted by biographer Frances Winwar." </span></div>
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Dupont%2C_Aim%C3%A9_%281842-1900%29_-_Eleonora_Duse_%C3%AC_--_New_York%2C_1896.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujpgkZdGpapzW6vsazPeiBCmH54mlaQgQ7M6n1IvMEEWlLiiBh2WlPFfQw1BbUU73YL9FY9zxotqa8EJv7RGF6GTd2x9u05ja64yonrqQ7SNl7pgTfgm9lG-LggQiUpYWwZ6JdJeMsrMB/s400/Dupont%252C_Aim%25C3%25A9_%25281842-1900%2529_-_Eleonora_Duse_%25C3%25AC_--_New_York%252C_1896.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I was, of course, curious about the exact words of that "adamant oratory" and I immediately turned to Winwar's biography in search of the words by Shaw. Winwar, in his <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=yCt9CgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT1&dq=frances%20winwar%20eleonora%20duse&pg=PT173#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank"><i>Wingless Victory - A Biography of Gabriele D'Annunzio and Eleonora Duse</i>, indeed refers to the occasion when both actresses "decided to play Magda, Duse at the Drury Lane and Bernhardt at Daly's Theater"</a> in what the author calls a "duel for supremacy." He goes on to describe how Shaw "voted unqualifiedly for Duse and defended his choice with trenchant oratory." No source, alas, is provided for this episode. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A similar account is provided in <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=fJd9BgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=taranow%20bernhardt&pg=PA103#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Taranow's biography of Bernhardt, where he refers to Shaw as a "passionate Ibsenite"</a> who "was negatively sensitive" to Bernhardt's performances. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=KbkZykQDUsgC&lpg=PT240&dq=%22every%20dimple%20has%20its%20dab%20of%20pink%22%20bernard%20shaw%20duse%20bernhardt&pg=PT240#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">A much later biography of Duse (by Helen Sheehy) includes a reference to the same critical piece</a> by Shaw and his opinions on Duse's performance. This time, we are only a little luckier in reading that it was written soon after Shaw had begun writing for <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Review_(London)" target="_blank">The Saturday Review</a></i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Once this information is provided, it is easy to turn to any of the excellent edited collections of Shaw's dramatic criticism in order to find the relevant article. <a href="https://archive.org/stream/dramaticopinions01shawrich#page/134/mode/2up">Specifically, </a><a href="https://archive.org/stream/dramaticopinions01shawrich#page/134/mode/2up">"Duse and Bernhardt"</a><a href="https://archive.org/stream/dramaticopinions01shawrich#page/134/mode/2up"> (that was its title) was published on June 15, 1895. The full text of the article is available HERE</a>. UNZ.org has also digitized this text and made it <a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/ShawBernard-1911v08-00134">publicly available HERE</a>. Other collections where the article can be read include <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Shaw-The-Drama-Observed/dp/0271008725">Bernard F. Dukore's The Drama Observed (Vol. II, pp. 366-371)</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Since I know you are more than capable of reading the article yourself and drawing your own conclusions, I will only bring to your attention how this article has been quoted and used in other media as an example of superb dramatic criticism and as the epitome of a certain kind of approach to acting. An approach that, as Shaw's article suggests, can tell "the difference between an effective part and a well-played one."</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2006/mar/05/entertainment/ca-act5/2" target="_blank">After the 2006 Academy Awards, for example</a>, Shaw's less-than-Solomonic judgement on these two actresses was borrowed to illustrate how "beauty in acting has less to do with good genes (or a great plastic surgeon) than with the representation of human truth."</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The rivalry between both icons of acting (together with the observations by Shaw) <a href="http://thevillager.com/villager_30/duse.html" target="_blank">was dramatized in 2003, in a "frightening" face-off</a>. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Duse and Bernhardt" was also included as an external element in a more recent adaptation of <a href="http://www.marinscope.com/ross_valley_reporter/lifestyles_entertainment/camellias-splits-crowd-into-laughers-and-grumps/article_ba8ee186-977a-11e5-a5bd-af84d5b818c8.html" target="_blank">this historical competition, "The Ladies of the Camellias"</a></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
In fact, Shaw's "un-Shavian rapture" is the basis of Sheehy's biography of Duse, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/07/books/the-first-modern-actor.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">as suggested by this <i>New York Times</i> review.</a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In a more distant, convolute connection, <a href="http://www.fr-online.de/theater/ein--duse--ballett-in-hamburg--die-duse--von-maennern-umzirkelt,1473346,32900604.html" target="_blank">Shaw is quoted in a review of a ballet coreography based on Duse's professional life</a> (in German). </div>
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/SarahBernhardt.png" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8_BZaiMPr9tpDsPOiOVLgic6WJw_fwLU7nV2vLbm1nq-S6EoAuk5LGCVyHHtEnSAij2NwmDyvAPCLrXvTxFq_8kQbOMXjd1MIZj2muXsOp9t8MfvsAsL3_aaVI02TfQYcA8ecTioa3kOL/s400/SarahBernhardt.png" width="308" /></a></div>
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Well, I hope this gives you an idea of how relevant a drama critic Bernard Shaw still is. I'm sure you all have your favorite in the Duse-Bernhardt duel, but nothing compares to Shaw's critical essays. </div>
</span>Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-89972360241323014732016-03-28T15:56:00.001-07:002016-03-28T15:56:26.182-07:00EBENEZER HOWARD: ONE OF THOSE HEROIC SIMPLETONS WHO DO BIG THINGS<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">One of the publications I regularly check for Shaw-related essays is the <i><a href="http://www.morrissociety.org/publications/journal.html" target="_blank">Journal of William Morris Studies</a></i>. The journal, which can be accessed freely on the website of <a href="http://www.morrissociety.org/" target="_blank">The William Morris Society</a>, often contains references to Shaw, whether because of their friendship or because of their shared interests (socialism, typesetting). <a href="http://www.morrissociety.org/publications/JWMS/21.2/21.2.Summer2015.pdf" target="_blank">The summer issue (2015) of the journal</a> contains a brief reference to Shaw, quoted as saying that Ebenezer Howard was </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">"One of those heroic simpletons who do big things whilst our prominent worldlings
are explaining why they are Utopian and impossible."</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">These words are taken from a letter that Shaw wrote after Sir Ebenezer's death in 1928, addressed to A.C. Howard, his son. I guess he must have taken solace in the fact that someone like Shaw would say such things of his father. The letter has not been included, to my knowledge, in any of the collected Shaw correspondences, and is <a href="http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/rd/292cb47c-c12d-4675-bd65-3c6d123b57b4" target="_blank">held as part of the Ebenezer Howard papers</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AEbenezer_Howard_Grave.jpg" title="Jack1956 at en.wikipedia [CC0], undefined"><img alt="Ebenezer Howard Grave" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Ebenezer_Howard_Grave.jpg/512px-Ebenezer_Howard_Grave.jpg" width="512" /></a>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Shavian twist, as usual, comes when we read the rest of the paragraph, which continues as follows: </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">"And of course it is they who will make money out of his work."</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Shaw is here probably referring to the success of Howard's inventions, like some printing machines for which he took out several patents. However, as many of you may know, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebenezer_Howard" target="_blank">Sir Ebenezer Howard is best known as the founder of the first "utopian" Garden Cities</a>. Perhaps his ideas and prospects about these Garden Cities are best summarized in his <a href="https://archive.org/stream/gardencitiestom00howagoog#page/n11/mode/2up" target="_blank"><i>Garden Cities of Tomorrow</i> (1902)</a>, a thorough account of the different aspects that an ideal city should address. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">At any rate, what interests me the most about this quotation is not so much what it says or what it implies for the understanding of the figure of Ebenezer Howard. In this case, what I find of interest is that Shaw's words have been chosen to synthesize the spirit of Howard's urban dreams </span><span style="font-size: large;">on countless occasions </span><span style="font-size: large;">- thus indirectly conferring a great deal of authority to Shaw. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Beevers, to begin with the obvious, <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=WrWuCwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA181&ots=Gaz7XuStz2&dq=%22one%20of%20those%20heroic%20simpletons%20who%22&pg=PA181#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">quotes this passage in his critical biography of Howard</a>. Likewise, the <a href="https://content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/english-garden-cities-introduction/english-garden-cities.pdf/" target="_blank">introduction to English Garden Cities published by English Heritage</a> also chooses Shaw's words to epitomize the nature of Howard's plans. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/19/anarchy-beauty-william-morris-legacy-review-virtue-of-simplicity" target="_blank">Even a recent article on an exhibition revisiting the legacy of William Morris</a> mentions Howard twice, Shaw's words included. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">On a similar note, scholarly publications on the English Garden Cities quote Shaw's eulogy frequently. <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=rGWQAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA211&dq=%22one%20of%20those%20heroic%20simpletons%20who%20do%20big%20things%22&pg=PA211#v=onepage&q=simpletons&f=false" target="_blank">Hardy, for example, discusses Shaw's letter at length and praises his choice of words</a>. More recently, <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=Ruh9AgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA58&dq=%22one%20of%20those%20heroic%20simpletons%20who%20do%20big%20things%22&pg=PA58#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Alexander also resorts to Shaw's letter to appraise the role of Howard</a> in modern urban development. Finally, <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=rUTiBwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT72&dq=%22one%20of%20those%20heroic%20simpletons%20who%20do%20big%20things%22&pg=PT72#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">the letter has also been used to illustrate the connections between material culture, modernity, and turn-of-the-century utopianism</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">This is, in sum, another example of how Shaw manages to capture the elusive nature of human personality with his phenomenal command of words and ideas - perhaps he should have taken up playwriting!</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HAuUnXdIx7E" width="560"></iframe>Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-77298705369719685092016-03-07T14:28:00.000-08:002016-03-07T14:28:28.090-08:00SHAW AND THE CULT OF LINCOLN - ABRAHAM, THAT IS.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">A few weeks ago, I was reading some new publications in order to decide whether their references to Shaw would be of interest to readers of the Continuing Checklist of Shaviana. One such publication was Nimrod Tal's <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=HlxOCgAAQBAJ&pg"><i>The American Civil War in British Culture: Representations and Responses, 1870 to the Present</i></a>. In chapter 3, "British Intellectuals and Abraham Lincoln" we read that "Bernard Shaw saw a cult of Lincoln in England" (p. 95), although no source is provided either in the text or in a note.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I tried to search for the source of these alleged words by Shaw in my database, but I could not find anything vaguely related to a "cult."</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Luckily for me, however, this notion of Shaw's acknowledgment of a "cult of Lincoln in England" is to be found in other publications on the subject. So, for example, Adam I. P. Smith, in his article "<a href="https://adamipsmith.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/twentieth-century-brit-hist-2010-smith-486-5091.pdf">The ‘Cult’ of Abraham Lincoln and the Strange Survival of Liberal England in the Era of the World Wars,</a>" not only cites Shaw as the source of these words, but in a footnote he provides three references where I expected to find the sources I was looking for. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The first one is <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=leZFPgAACAAJ&dq">Mark E. Neely's <i>The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia</i></a>, where we can read (p. 53) that "George Bernard Shaw told Lincoln collector Judd Stewart that there was 'a cult of Lincoln in England, received of late from Lord Charnwood's very penetrating biography.'"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The other two references Smith cites in his footnote are <a href="https://archive.org/stream/abrahamlincoln1929char#page/n7/mode/2up">Lord Charnwood's biography of Lincoln</a> and <a href="https://archive.org/stream/abrahamlincpl0019drin#page/n5/mode/2up">a biographical play from the same period, this one by John Drinkwater</a>. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The source of Shaw's words is further corroborated by some documents that have been recently digitized from the Files of the <a href="http://lincolncollection.org/" target="_blank">Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection</a>. These documents include a <a href="https://ia600901.us.archive.org/21/items/abrahamlincolnselinc_0/abrahamlincolnselinc_0.pdf">1981 issue of <i>Lincoln Lore</i>, the Bulletin of the Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum, which was edited by the aforementioned Mark E. Neely</a>. There, we read an almost verbatim reproduction of what he had written in his <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=leZFPgAACAAJ&dq"><i>The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia</i></a>: "George Bernard Shaw told Lincoln collector Judd Stewart that Charnwood's "very penetrating biography" created "a cult of Lincoln in England." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Of course, although Shaw's opinion as quoted by Neely is plausible, we are still left with a personal record of a conversation of which there is no further evidence. Whether one chooses to take this with a grain of salt is a personal decision, but I cannot end this post without bringing to your attention the fact that Shaw read all the books about Lincoln we have just mentioned - and then some. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">If you search for <a href="http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/results?SearchTerms=lincoln&Places=26ac7b56fffffe0752ee072239c4abfe">"Lincoln" on the website of the National Trust Collections, and you limit your search to the items found in Shaw's Corner</a>, you will find that Shaw owned copies of both Drinkwater's play and Charnwood's biography - as well as another biography of Lincoln by Basil Williams. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Shaw may or may not have said that there was a "cult," but he was no doubt aware of the stature of Abrahm Lincoln as an icon of history and culture.</span></div>
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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln#/media/File:PinkertonLincolnMcClernand.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcBabkzp5jiTjhQmQ4usZFvU4VGFLbzAWbaoq2RcRXY0v8gFv639MkVYztFjuJ8APcTa2gfWzfHH0aTKgs52tDOWtvRl_Tbp7nnBoDy6fFef7n7eQGzDvBxM7flTrc7pUQO_5MDmqFTspa/s640/PinkertonLincolnMcClernand.jpg" width="458" /></a></div>
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-27007551189845897142016-02-17T14:41:00.000-08:002016-02-19T05:39:09.485-08:00A REVOLUTION ALWAYS SEEMS HOPELESS AND IMPOSSIBLE THE DAY BEFORE IT BREAKS OUT<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">A few days ago I discovered that the terrorist who was responsible for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks" target="_blank">2011 Norway attacks</a> had written <a href="https://info.publicintelligence.net/AndersBehringBreivikManifesto.pdf" target="_blank">a manifesto in which he quotes Shaw twice</a>. The first quotation is one of the aphorisms in "Maxims for Revolutionists," one of the addenda to <i><a href="https://archive.org/stream/mansupermancomed00shawrich#page/n7/mode/2up" target="_blank">Man and Superman</a></i>, and it reads: </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AReign_of_the_Superman.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="By Herbert S. Fine (Jerry Siegel) and Joe Shuster [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="Reign of the Superman" height="277" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Reign_of_the_Superman.jpg/256px-Reign_of_the_Superman.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">The other
quotation is a little bit more complex. Not only because the whole sentence has
the usual convolute syntax that so many of us have grown to enjoy, but because
it is part of a longer context that needs to be discussed as well. The
quotation in question is the following: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">"A
revolution always seems hopeless and impossible the day before it breaks out
and indeed never does break out until it seems hopeless and impossible."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">As many of
you may remember, this fragment is from the </span><a href="https://archive.org/details/backtomethusela00shawgoog"><span lang="EN-US">Preface to <i>Back to Methuselah</i></span></a><span lang="EN-US">. Specifically, it is part of the
section called "</span><a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Back_to_Methuselah_Preface/sect;_viii#THE_BETRAYAL_OF_WESTERN_CIVILIZATION"><span lang="EN-US">The Betrayal of Western Civilization</span></a><span lang="EN-US">." In this section, before
writing the sentence I have quoted above, Shaw is complaining about the abuses
on the part of allegedly democratic governments in the form of censorship and
repression (though not exclusively) because they are afraid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">"Statesmen
are afraid of the suburbs, of the newspapers, of the profiteers, of the
diplomatists, of the militarists, of the country houses, of the trade unions,
of everything ephemeral on earth except the revolutions they are provoking; and
they would be afraid of these if they were not too breaks out, and indeed never
does break out until it seems hopeless and ignorant of society and history to
appreciate the risk, and to know that a revolution always seems hopeless and
impossible the day before it impossible; for rulers who think it possible take
care to insure the risk by ruling reasonably."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">In other
words, what may seem like encouragement for revolutionists is actually a plea
for reasonable government. This surprises no-one among Shavians, for we know
Shaw was not a man of action. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">That is
perhaps why Lenin called him "</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Good-Man-Fallen-Among-Fabians/dp/0846411024"><span lang="EN-US">a good man fallen among Fabians</span></a><span lang="EN-US">."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">That is
perhaps why he decided to walk away from the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1887)"><span lang="EN-US">Bloody Sunday riots</span></a><span lang="EN-US">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">That is
perhaps why he joined and promoted a political (Fabian) society that was named
after a </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabius_Maximus"><span lang="EN-US">Roman general that defeated Hannibal
with delaying tactics</span></a><span lang="EN-US">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">And that is
perhaps why we find interesting connections between censorship and revolution
in Shaw's writings. So, for example, we can read something to the same effect
of the above in the </span><a href="https://archive.org/stream/statementofevide00shawrich#page/n3/mode/2up"><span lang="EN-US">Statement of the evidence in chief
of George Bernard Shaw before the Joint-Committee on Stage Plays </span></a><a href="https://archive.org/stream/statementofevide00shawrich#page/n3/mode/2up"><span lang="EN-US">(1909)</span></a><span lang="EN-US">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">"The
Inquisition and the Star Chamber, which were nothing but censorships, made
ruthless war on impiety and immorality. The result was once familiar to Englishmen,
though of late years it seems to have been forgotten. It cost England a
revolution to get rid of the Star Chamber. Spain did not get rid of the
Inquisition, and paid for that omission by becoming a barely third-rate power
politically, and intellectually no power at all, in the Europe she had once
dominated as the mightiest of the Christian empires."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">Paradoxically
(not quite), as he points out in his </span><a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=oWCqjaEcB_QC&lpg=PT226&ots=J4X7cz6ugt&dq=I%20am%20a%20moral%20revolutionary%2C%20interested%2C%20not%20in%20the%20class%20war%2C%20but%20in%20the%20struggle%20between%20human%20vitality%20and%20the%20artificial%20system%20of%20morality%2C%20and%20distinguishing%2C%20not%20between%20capitalist%20%26%20proletarian%2C%20but%20between%20moralist%20and%20natural%20historian.&pg=PT226#v=onepage&q&f=false"><span lang="EN-US">famous letter to H. M. Hyndman (28
April 1900)</span></a><span lang="EN-US">, Shaw
is a revolutionary himself, but a "moral revolutionary"<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">"I am
a moral revolutionary, interested, not in the class war, but in the struggle
between human vitality and the artificial system of morality, and
distinguishing, not between capitalist & proletarian, but between moralist
and natural historian." <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">Shavians of
the world, unite!</span></span> </div>
</div>
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AG_Bernard_Shaw_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="By Published on LIFE [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="G Bernard Shaw 2" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/G_Bernard_Shaw_2.jpg" /></a></div>
</div>
</pre>
Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-17153033572850757722016-01-26T16:18:00.000-08:002016-01-26T16:19:36.545-08:00BERNARD SHAW AND REPARTEE: UNDESERVING SUCH PRAISE.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">A few weeks ago, my faithful Google Alerts brought to my email inbox <a href="http://www.newindianexpress.com/columns/Mastering-the-Art-of-Giving-it-Back-%E2%80%94-Through-Repartee/2015/10/14/article3079071.ece" target="_blank">an article in <i>The New Indian Express</i> </a>that illustrates the concept of repartee by providing a number of examples. Notably, two of them have Bernard Shaw as one of the necessary protagonists. <a href="http://www.shawquotations.blogspot.com.es/search/label/Winston%20Churchill" target="_blank">The first of them has already been discussed here</a>, and has been discarded as completely apocryphal. The other one, however, I had never heard of. It goes like this: </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"Cornelia
Otis Skinner won critical acclaim in the lead role of Shaw’s play <i>Candida</i>. Shaw
cabled, “Excellent. Greatest.” Skinner, overjoyed, replied, “Undeserving such
praise.” Shaw cabled back, “I meant the play.” Pat came the reply, “So did I.”"</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">If you Google the key words in this exchange, you will quickly realize that the anecdote has been quoted countless times, even if we only list articles that are available online, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1990-08-23/news/vw-1801_1_dear-wit" target="_blank">like this one</a>, <a href="http://chiefexecutive.net/primus-inter-pares-3/" target="_blank">this one</a>, or <a href="https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-138838914.html" target="_blank">this one</a>. However, no source is provided in any of the instances I've come across. Not even in books that claim <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=R5-0CncaWNEC&pg=PA156&dq=bernard+shaw+cornelia+otis+skinner+%22so+did+I%22&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=bernard%20shaw%20cornelia%20otis%20skinner%20%22so%20did%20I%22&f=false" target="_blank">to have researched the question</a>, or <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=Oqb5HfIryjQC&pg=PA21&dq=bernard+shaw+cornelia+otis+skinner+%22so+did+I%22&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=bernard%20shaw%20cornelia%20otis%20skinner%20%22so%20did%20I%22&f=false" target="_blank">in the secondary sources they cite</a>. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Of course, the first thing I did was to check my database and, there it was! There is at least one book that makes reference to this witty repartee. Although, as we shall see, it is not the most reliable of sources. The exact details follow. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">On page 249 of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shaw-Villager-Human-Being-Biographical/dp/B002A6RENI" target="_blank">Allan Chappelow's <i>Shaw the Villager and Human Being</i></a>, we read how <a href="http://www.nls.uk/catalogues/online/cnmi/inventories/acc6283.pdf" target="_blank">Dr. William Maxwell</a> recounts a story that Shaw told him when he was staying with him in Edimburgh: </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"The scene was the 90's, when
he was a music critic. He had been invited to a soirée in the house of a noted
society lady. She had engaged a violinist (in whose career she had taken an
interest) to entertain her guests—there were hundreds of them—and at the end of
the evening, asked Shaw what he thought of her protégé. He replied that the
violinist reminded him of Paderewski. 'But Paderewski is not a violinist,' she
said. ' Exactly,' replied G.B.S. !"</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">This paragraph ends with a footnote where the author goes on to say that<span style="font-family: inherit;"> "this amusing story prompted me
to tell Dr. Maxwell the following one of a similar flavour." Of course, "the following one" is the story we have quoted at the beginning of this post.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6Zvqrzrwees" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Admittedly, Chappelow does not provide any other source but his own knowledge, and we cannot take his words as confirmation that the exchange between Shaw and Skinner ever took place. As we all know, Chappelow made Shaw's aquaintance when he visited him in 1950 (the year of Shaw's death) and took the last known photographs of him. Therefore, he can only have learned about this anecdote from secondary sources, and it is unlikely that Shaw should have ever mentioned this to him in person - Chappelow would have </span>probably included that <span style="font-family: inherit;">information in his book.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">In all, it seems that this quotation may well be apocryphal or, ultimately, impossible to confirm. There is nonetheless evidence to give credibility to this repartee. In 1943 (during Shaw's and Skinner's own lifetimes) Isabella Taves published a book entitled <i><a href="https://ia600406.us.archive.org/9/items/successfulwomena007740mbp/successfulwomena007740mbp.pdf" target="_blank">Successful Women and How They Attained Success</a></i>. The chapter devoted to Cornelia Otis Skinner (pp. 69-78) also contains the same story, practically in the same words. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Although I know of no data to confirm this, it is plausible to believe that either Shaw or Skinner (or both) might have come across this book - if the author did not send a complimentary copy herself. Wouldn't they have corrected Taves if the story weren't true? Who knows?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACornelia_Otis_Skinner.jpg" title="Por Rogers Photo Archives (ebay.com, front of photo back of photo) [Public domain], undefined"><img alt="Cornelia Otis Skinner" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/Cornelia_Otis_Skinner.jpg/512px-Cornelia_Otis_Skinner.jpg" width="512" /></a></div>
</div>
Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-26013110944298158492016-01-19T11:22:00.000-08:002016-01-19T11:27:49.715-08:00POLITICS AND THE UNCOMMON MAN<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">I came across a somewhat lengthy quotation - allegedly
by Shaw - the other day, as I was perusing </span><span style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="http://www.villagerpublishing.com/75206/opinion/remarks-local-political-election-year-2015/" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">an article about Greenwood Village's local election</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Don't
ask me why. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
The quotation reads as follows: </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
“It is a curious fact that when we get sick, we want an uncommon doctor. If we
have a construction job, we want an uncommon engineer. When we get into war, we
want and uncommon admiral and an uncommon general. Only when we get into
politics are we content with the common man.”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
As usual, no source is provided. So I seached my database and... nothing! </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
Well, it's no wonder. It turns out that none other than </span><span style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">President Herbert Hoover</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> pronounced these words as part of a telephone address from New
York City to Wilmington College, Wilmington, Ohio on the occasion of the
conference "Building For A Better Tomorrow." If you read the links
below you'll see just how fitting the title was. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
The full text of the speech can be read at </span><span style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="http://www.hooverassociation.org/hoover/speeches/uncommon_man.php" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">the Hoover Association's page</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">, and you can see that it was later </span><span style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="https://research.archives.gov/id/187092" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">published as a booklet - a copy of which is available at the National
Archives's site</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHerbertClarkHoover.jpg" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;" title="See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="HerbertClarkHoover" height="640" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/HerbertClarkHoover.jpg" width="484" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Well, another misattribution, another dollar. We know
of many witticisms and other quotations that have been erroneously ascribed to
Shaw. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
However, this blog has no interest in the words of American Presidents - </span><span style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="http://shawquotations.blogspot.com.es/2014/04/you-see-things-and-you-say-why-but-i.html" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">except for the occasional Shavianism</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">. In fact, political speeches - or, rather, the speeches of politicians
- are practically anathema for Shaw. See, for instance, what he had to say
about the way the politicians of his time delivered their speeches through the
wireless: </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
"Most of the politicians are awful. Lloyd George was bad enough, and
Churchill is no better. Someone ought to tell them that their House
of Commons style, with long pauses between every word to think out what they
are going to say next, is pitiful through the mike, especially when they
pronounce their prepositions and conjunctions as if they were speaking oracles."</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">
The quotation is from </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="http://www.abebooks.co.uk/Bernard-Shaw-Biography-Hesketh-Pearson-MacDonald/16125519169/bd" style="font-size: 13.5pt;" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Hesketh Pearson's <i>Bernard Shaw: A Biography</i> (p. 469)</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;">, and many of </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="http://shawsociety.org/" style="font-size: 13.5pt;" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">my dear friends from the ISS</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> should re-read at least that page because another thing Shaw is
quoted as saying is "Do you know anything about these infernal Shaw
Societies?" </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
At any rate, since Shaw was actually referring to style rather than to content,
I'll spare President Hoover, Winston Churcill and all other politicians, and
publish the post all the same. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-40365300508323057332015-12-19T16:09:00.000-08:002015-12-19T16:09:58.905-08:00A FUNNY FREUDIAN? SLIP<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Because this is not really a quotation, I am going to be brief. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The other day I was searching for the latest publications on Bernard Shaw - I use <a href="https://books.google.com/" target="_blank">Google Books</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/" target="_blank">Google Scholar</a> for that, among other repositories - when the title of one of the books that made reference to Shaw caught my eye. It was <i><a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=svKACgAAQBAJ" target="_blank">Ancient Rome and the Construction of Modern Homosexual Identities</a></i>. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">It took me a while to find the two references to "Bernard Shaw" in the book, and it took me a while more to understand what was going on. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">It turns out that in Chapter 8 ("<span style="line-height: 20.2222px;">Petronius' <i>Satyrica</i> and Gore Vidal's</span><span style="line-height: 20.2222px;"> <i>The City and the Pillar</i></span>"), the author (<a href="https://www.wku.edu/english/staff/nikolai_endres" target="_blank">Nikolai Endres</a>) discusses the depiction of homosexual relationships between a young boy and an older man. When he describes the case of Jim in <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw8yO0Y4It4" target="_blank">The City and the Pillar</a></i>, he mistakes the name of the actor he has an affair with in the novel (Ronald Shaw) for that of Bernard Shaw. Thus, a rather unexpected paragraph follows, reproduced here: </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoENLBEtNKPAJTuuw3HSL8G_iJhi8KvKNLoE5ZWnRxt60eJXMXsvPzoJGwSspWTP-EKHfLlLt-zVihyNzmRq_uBipc7ZbdGVEpQJvPAHJNVL1PG5JbVwefewC3ykYX295IX8SX32sWOpev/s1600/Freudian+Slip..JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="345" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoENLBEtNKPAJTuuw3HSL8G_iJhi8KvKNLoE5ZWnRxt60eJXMXsvPzoJGwSspWTP-EKHfLlLt-zVihyNzmRq_uBipc7ZbdGVEpQJvPAHJNVL1PG5JbVwefewC3ykYX295IX8SX32sWOpev/s400/Freudian+Slip..JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Although it is simply a small typographical error that does not subtract from the quality of the chapter, let this be a warning to all my readers about the perils of the internet. And also a token of the type of chaff that the editor of the <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/annual_of_bernard_shaw_studies/v035/35.2.martin.html" target="_blank">Continuing Checklist of Shaviana</a> has to separate from the wheat. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-69574521056541217292015-12-15T14:56:00.001-08:002015-12-15T14:57:23.449-08:00SKELLIG MICHAEL: "PART OF OUR DREAM WORLD"<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span font-family:="" font-size:="" inherit="" large=""><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">A few days ago, </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://shawsociety.org/" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">ISS President</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://cms.bsu.edu/academics/collegesanddepartments/theatredance/facultystaff/theatricalstudiesproductionandtheatreeducationfaculty/oharamichael" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Michael O'Hara</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> brought to my
attention an article in </span><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">The New York Times</span></a></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> with
an unlikely </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/travel/star-wars-ireland-skellig-michael.html" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">connection between Star Wars and Shaw</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The article in question describes the natural beauty of one of Ireland's
"most mystical places,"<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/757" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Skellig Michael (Sceilg Mhichíl)</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. The article also describes a recent visit to the site by<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hamill" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Star Wars actor Mark Hamill</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">,
who played Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy. Both Hamill and the author (</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://lucinda-hahn-apkn.squarespace.com/info/" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Lucinda Hahn</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">) seem to have fallen in
love with the place and, to add another preacher to the choir, Hahn quotes
Shaw's description of Skellig Michael: </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #f6b26b;">No wonder George Bernard Shaw, following a visit in 1910, described
Skellig Michael this way: “I hardly feel real again … I tell you, the thing
does not belong to any world that you and I have lived and worked in: It is
part of our dream world.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdcieEngX-jhOxeJ8SrYjdU4P_AuqHF0HvdpgUGlNKQU7paqY2rIuC8qNHF4ti5Atn0-qqiPV1t6pK71gN7qypwt1jpFN4YXFXYO-ha73Hn665dIwMnEglG_0xiv3Gpgt3NEMAZlr8KaW3/s1600/Skellig_Michael_%25286214838436%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdcieEngX-jhOxeJ8SrYjdU4P_AuqHF0HvdpgUGlNKQU7paqY2rIuC8qNHF4ti5Atn0-qqiPV1t6pK71gN7qypwt1jpFN4YXFXYO-ha73Hn665dIwMnEglG_0xiv3Gpgt3NEMAZlr8KaW3/s400/Skellig_Michael_%25286214838436%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Of course, nobody ever thinks of poor people who cannot sleep a wink if
they cannot source their Shaw quotations - and alas, no source is provided. Luckily
for me, it didn't take long to find the source. </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The fragments Hahn quotes belong to a letter Shaw sent to Frederick
Jackson (18th Sept., 1910). The letter has been published in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dan-H.-Laurence/e/B000AQ1Z6C" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Dan H. Laurence's</span></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">edited collection of Shaw's
correspondence (</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shaw-The-Letters-George-Bernard/dp/0670805440" target="_blank"><i><span lang="EN-US">Collected Letters</span></i><span lang="EN-US">, 1898-1910, p. 941-943</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">). </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">However, the article in the NY Times fails to mention that the two
excerpts they quote appear in reverse order in Shaw's letter, and that they are
also separated by quite a few lines. </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">For those of you who may not have a copy of Laurence's<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Collected Letters</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>at hand, I am glad to inform you that<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Shaw-China-Cross-Cultural-Encounters/dp/0813030854" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Kay Li</span></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">(the leader of the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://libra.apps01.yorku.ca/" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Shaw-Sagittarius project, one of the Sagittarius Literature Digitizing
Projects</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">) has shared with us an<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://www.stefangeens.com/gbs.html" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">online version of the letter, which you can read in its entirety</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. The text is an exact copy of the original letter as published. </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Apart from the beauty of the place, the words "dream world"
have certainly drawn the attention of many Shaw critics who have chosen this
letter to illustrate their appraisal of, for example, Shaw's views about
Ireland. Let us look at some of them, in no particular order. </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><br />
</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300075007" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Sally Peters</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, in her<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=hQsBr0vhoVoC" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Bernard Shaw: The Ascent of the Superman</span></a></span></i><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">(p. 27-28), reminds us that Shaw was visiting his homeland and felt
"besieged by a strong sense of his own mortality." Peters also finds
reminiscences of "the hold of this fantastic rock on Shaw's
imagination" in the "strange outcroppings that surface in the
settings for<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Too True to Be
Good</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(1931) and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Simpleton of the Unexpected
Isles</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(1934)."</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><br />
</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Holroyd" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Michael Holroyd's</span></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> </span></span><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Shaw-One-Volume-Definitive-Edition/dp/0375500499" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Bernard Shaw: The One-Volume Definitive Edition</span></a></span></i><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">also delves on the emotional dimension of this excursion, which probably
brought back fond memories of childhood days for Shaw. </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">In Holroyd's words (p.
364)</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN-US">"Upon this cathedral of the sea, the man who generally seemed a
stranger on the planet felt at home. Standing in the graveyards at the Skellig<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>summit,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>he recalled the summers of his early
years when Sonny roamed over the rocks and goat-paths of Dalkey, and gazed
across the blue waters to Howth Head; or had lain on the grassy top of the hill
above the bay - then raced down to the shore known as White Rock and plunged
into the waves. Sonny had been a product of Dalkey’s outlook: there was little
place for him in the bustling world where G.B.S. moved. But he breathed again
in the magic climate of this island."<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><br />
</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/A.-M.-Gibbs/e/B001HPECG0" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">A. M. Gibbs's</span></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> </span></span><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/a-bernard-shaw-chronology-am-gibbs/?sf1=barcode&st1=9780333633274" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">A Bernard Shaw Chronology</span></a></span></i><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">does not provide us with any critical commentary, but reminds us that
the famous rowboat trip was only a consequence of having "failed to reach
them [<i>the Skelligs</i>] by yatch on the 16th." In addition, in </span><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="http://upf.com/book.asp?id=GIBBSS05" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Bernard Shaw: A Life</span></a></span></i><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">(by the same author) reference is made to an earlier letter addressed
to Mabel Fitzgerald, wife of the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_FitzGerald_(politician)" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">Sinn Féin MP Desmond Fitzgerald</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">.
In it, Shaw remarks (p. 250-251) that "t</span><span lang="EN-US">he magic of
Ireland is very strong for me when I see a beehive dwelling. Did you ever
make the pilgrimage to Skellig Michael? If not, you have not yet
seen Ireland." A few lines later, Gibbs quotes the letter to Frederick
Jackson (apparently still quoted in tourist information), and argues that
"this 'dream world' of ancient religious traditions and haunting beauty
was an essential component in the multifaceted Shavian image of
lreland."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br />
I must agree with Gibbs. After all, we learn from Shaw himself that "an
Irishman's heart is nothing but his imagination" - or his dreams.</span></span></div>
<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V_c6qX1J-sE" style="text-align: justify;" width="560"></iframe></div>
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-52265055766391650322015-12-10T12:28:00.001-08:002015-12-10T12:47:37.090-08:00THIS IS THE WAY GOD WOULD HAVE BUILT IT, IF HE'D HAD THE MONEY<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">This morning I was idling browsing Youtube for
videos that may be relevant to any of the playlists in the </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxGpZjHhix37VN-zFfX6psg/playlists"><span lang="EN-US">GBS Youtube Channel</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> (subscribe, pretty please!).
After a few minutes I came across a short </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IbE46J9e3M"><span lang="EN-US">documentary video about Hearst Castle</span></a><span lang="EN-US">, the mansion built by </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst"><span lang="EN-US">William Randolph Hearst</span></a><span lang="EN-US">. In the description, it is said
that Shaw deemed this stately house "the place God would have built if he
had the money." <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4IbE46J9e3M" width="560"></iframe>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">The video had been uploaded by the </span><a href="http://www.si.edu/"><span lang="EN-US">Smithsonian
Institution</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> to
their </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWqPRUsJlZaDp-PVbqEch9g"><span lang="EN-US">Official Youtube Channel</span></a><span lang="EN-US">, so I had every reason to believe
that the quotation was legitimate. But, alas, no source was provided. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">After searching my database for a few minutes,
I found that the quotation had indeed been pronounced by Shaw during the few
days they (he and Charlotte) were guests of Hearst and his mistress </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Davies"><span lang="EN-US">Marion Davies</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> (24th to 27th March, 1933). In the
editorial material preceding a letter Shaw wrote to Hearst (in fact, an
inscription in Hearst's copy of </span><i><a href="http://library.brown.edu/exhibits/archive/shaw/politics.html"><span lang="EN-US">What I Really Wrote About the War</span></a></i><span lang="EN-US">), </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dan-H.-Laurence/e/B000AQ1Z6C"><span lang="EN-US">Dan H. Laurence</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> writes that Shaw, when asked by a fellow
guest what he thought about the building, replied: "This is the way God
would have built it, if He'd had the money." We are told that Shaw spent
those days "luxuriating in the indoor and outdoor swimming pools and
enjoying his proximity to the exotic animals and birds with which the
ranch was stocked." In addition, they were "surrounded by a bevy of
Hollywood starlets and intimate friends of Davies" (See <i>Collected
Letters</i> <i>Vol. IV, 1926-1950</i>, p. 332-333). <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">Laurence, in turn, provides </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Must-Remember-This-Reminisceneces/dp/039911274X"><span lang="EN-US">Walter Wagner's <i>You Must
Remember This</i> (New York: Putnam, 1975)</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> as his source. Sure enough, the quotation
and the accompanying anecdote are mentioned on page 85. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">However, other sources do not attribute the
quotation to Shaw, or at least attribute the same words to a different person.
Specifically, Howard Teichmann's <i>George S. Kaufman: An Intimate
Portrait</i> (New York: Atheneum, 1972), quotes </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Kaufman"><span lang="EN-US">the American critic</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> on page 127 as having said "This is
what God could have done if He'd had the money." Kaufmann's words,
however, do not express his awe at Hearst's castle-like mansion, but rather at
the 2,000 pine trees that </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss_Hart"><span lang="EN-US">Moss Hart</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> had transplanted to the once-barren land
he owned in Bucks County, Pa. The same story is reported in a 1977 issue
of </span><a href="http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20067394,00.html"><i><span lang="EN-US">People Weekly </span></i><span lang="EN-US">(7 Feb. 1977, p. 32)</span></a><span lang="EN-US">. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">For good measure, however, the above
attribution is, in turn, considered apocryphal by a letter to the same magazine
(</span><a href="http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20067462,00.html"><span lang="EN-US">published three weeks later, on Feb.
28</span></a><span lang="EN-US">). The letter,
signed by David A. France from New Hope, Pa., claims that it was "</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Woollcott"><span lang="EN-US">AlexanderWoollcott</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> who, after inspecting the [Hart's]
gardens and "the Gertrude Lawrence Memorial Wing" snapped, "It's
exactly what God would have done—if He'd had the money."" The letter
provides no source for this, although the editor's reply to the letter concedes
that the author of the article (</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Carlisle"><span lang="EN-US">Kitty Carlisle Hart</span></a><span lang="EN-US">, Moss's wife) "had always associated the
quote about God with Kaufmann," "but it may well have been Alec. It
sounds like Alec." <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">Once again, an alleged Shaw quotation has to be
quarantined until a definitive source surfaces. Whatever the case may be, the
time the Shaws spent at Hearst's is worth recording as one of their most
remarkable international visits. </span><a href="https://www.zeemaps.com/geoshaw">GeoShaw material</a>, in other words.</span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC-CeGIqRN876q19oeTb8Y9heDWBPe9JdTYUlOmuf3x_lOT6aBztf0pDBRyZ6Je7R9SI6WECFkjwcy4uH2rf6RR8PzF22O4UnkGyH6SRJazRUyfhSHCVj9GylnWvuAjUUtA23ZAIjryZn0/s1600/Moss_Hart_Arlene_Francis_Answer_Yes_or_No_1950.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC-CeGIqRN876q19oeTb8Y9heDWBPe9JdTYUlOmuf3x_lOT6aBztf0pDBRyZ6Je7R9SI6WECFkjwcy4uH2rf6RR8PzF22O4UnkGyH6SRJazRUyfhSHCVj9GylnWvuAjUUtA23ZAIjryZn0/s400/Moss_Hart_Arlene_Francis_Answer_Yes_or_No_1950.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-69535741228986754312015-11-23T14:58:00.001-08:002015-11-23T15:14:10.581-08:00ANOTHER FOREIGN LANGUAGE - THAT OF AMURRICA<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">During the wonderful </span><a href="http://www.shawsociety.org/Shaw-in-New-York-Conference-2015.htm"><span lang="EN-US">Shaw in NYC Conferece</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> that was so successfully
organized, and thoroughly enjoyed by many of us last October, </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jean-Reynolds/e/B001HCZWOE"><span lang="EN-US">my friend Jean Reynolds</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> gave me a few Shaw books she
had extra copies of so that I could enlarge my personal library. This is
something she has been doing for a while now, and I cannot thank her enough for
it. I normally try to return the favour by sending her a digitized copy of
whatever books she gives me - a deal any of you can get, by the way. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">This time, one of the books I got is a
relatively well-preserved copy of </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Quintessence-G-B-S-Wisdom-Bernard/dp/B000OKKHS6"><span lang="EN-US">The Quintessence of G.B.S., edited
by Stephen Winsten (1949)</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLS0Ku79-8MXwJdmbwVZIa0ryClLPkj6URyEZU4IO9URwn9Ep4VhcoWYEL_Q42CCfH8JJHB4cynz7vDLcwrJw0V__R-aQ__Zx6SeOKuukfY4tPoxJzBv4rF9EK9RDvNxo8W08BUYwiQa6v/s1600/IMG_20151123_135641.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLS0Ku79-8MXwJdmbwVZIa0ryClLPkj6URyEZU4IO9URwn9Ep4VhcoWYEL_Q42CCfH8JJHB4cynz7vDLcwrJw0V__R-aQ__Zx6SeOKuukfY4tPoxJzBv4rF9EK9RDvNxo8W08BUYwiQa6v/s400/IMG_20151123_135641.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This book is a lode of invaluable information for quotation hunters like me, as it is basically a compendium of Shaw quotations with their corresponding source. As luck would have it, I turned one of the pages and I found an old scrap of paper that had been probably used as a page marker for a long time. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5kPLgqfwULENrRYw0w8HETpyuPN7SzmKnjtEXB37mSPt1tmn_M-jBOHY6D74Vu65fqqvbr46ZKuA5BsB1P63Z8F5VkGccMwU-AoxKGyPEVkhy6wU1elmJNGLESeiQVySBXId4uThDWTSY/s1600/IMG_20151123_135632.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5kPLgqfwULENrRYw0w8HETpyuPN7SzmKnjtEXB37mSPt1tmn_M-jBOHY6D74Vu65fqqvbr46ZKuA5BsB1P63Z8F5VkGccMwU-AoxKGyPEVkhy6wU1elmJNGLESeiQVySBXId4uThDWTSY/s400/IMG_20151123_135632.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">When I took it out of the book in order to scan that particular page, my eye was caught by what seemed a rather unusual choice of words for Shaw:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Another foreign language - that of Amurrica. </span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Winsten" target="_blank">Winsten</a> tells us that this phrase is taken from <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/ourtheatresinthe030519mbp" target="_blank">Our Theatres in the Nineties</a></i>, one of the collections of Shaw's dramatic criticism. Although I was ready to take Winsten's word for it, I wanted to see the quotation in its larger context, so I decided to locate it. The problem was that the editor had forgotten to say in which of the three volumes of <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/ourtheatresinthe030519mbp" target="_blank">Our Theatres in the Nineties</a></i> this exact quotation is to be found. As many of you know, this collection of critical essays consists of three volumes containing the articles Shaw contributed weekly to <i><a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=45pdAAAAcAAJ" target="_blank">The Saturday Review</a></i> from January 1895 to May 1898 - in other words, a little over 150 articles, or more than 800 pages of text. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">A quick search in my database (technology really is something!) returns the exact occurrence of the above quotation on page 163 of Volume I, in an article that critiqued one of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustin_Daly"><span lang="EN-US">Augustin Daly's</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> productions. The article in question was entitled "Mr Daly Fossilizes" (29 June 1895), and was written on occasion of the staging of </span><i><a href="http://library24.library.cornell.edu:8280/luna/servlet/detail/FOLGERCM1~6~6~296055~122725:Miss-Rehan-&-Mr--Drew-in--Daly-s--T"><span lang="EN-US">The Railroad of Love</span></a></i><i><span lang="EN-US"> </span></i><span lang="EN-US">at Daly's Theatre, a comedy in four acts adapted by Mr. Daly from a German play called <i>Goldfische</i>, by Franz von Schönthan and Gustav Kadelburg. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The excerpt on the alleged foreign language of "Amurrica" is the opening sentence of the article, and it introduces Shaw's argument that Daly's adaptation was already completely outmoded and superseded in London's West End at this point. In Shaw's own words: </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">"I wonder how far Mr Daly realizes how completely that state of things has gone by. When Mr Charrington produced Ibsen's Doll's House at the Royalty in 1889, he smashed up the British drama of the eighties. Not that the public liked Ibsen: he was infinitely too good for that. But the practical business point is not how people liked Ibsen, but how they liked Byron, Sardou, and Tom Taylor after lbsen. And that is the point that our managers miss."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">By the way, those of you who may not have a copy of <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/ourtheatresinthe030519mbp" target="_blank">Our Theatres in the Nineties</a></i> handy can also read this article in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Shaw-The-Drama-Observed/dp/0271008725" target="_blank">The Drama Observed</a></i> (Vol. II, pp. 378-383), edited by <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ABernard%20F.%20Dukore" target="_blank">Bernard F. Dukore</a>. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Once the point in question has been sufficiently clarified, there are at least a couple of things worth commenting on. The first one is that, to be frank, given Shaw's interest in music, phonetics, and speech, I was expecting this quotation to be related to American accents on stage or someting of that nature. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Also, it gives one a different perspective on what we consider contemporary jargon. The Internet is plagued with pseudo-comic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_meme" target="_blank">memes</a> satirizing - commonly through exaggeration - any aspect of the American stereotype. These usually label the resulting portrait "Murica."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.memecenter.com/fun/1625499/murica" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;"><img src="http://img.memecdn.com/murica_o_1625499.webp" height="400" width="294" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Well, contrary to what I initially believed, but very much in line with what Shaw represents, he was ahead of his time in this also. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-75183718607041672692015-11-17T15:19:00.003-08:002015-11-17T15:20:33.007-08:00GEOSHAW: THE MAP<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">For those of you who have not visited the <a href="https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=1373283" target="_blank">GeoShaw Map Project</a> yet, we have brought Muhammad to the mountain.</span></div>
<iframe frameborder="0" src="//www.zeemaps.com/pub?group=1373283&legend=1&list=1&shuttered=1" style="height: 500px; width: 100%;"> </iframe>Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-72580702934144231042015-10-17T14:15:00.000-07:002015-10-21T12:54:22.919-07:00GEOSHAW: SHAW'S PLACES THEN AND NOW<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Below is a list of the addresses and locales that have been included in our <a href="https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=1373283" target="_blank">GeoShaw Map</a> thus far. Each address is linked to a picture of the site as it stands today. All the pictures have been taken and generously donated by Evelyn Ellis and her collaborators.</span><br />
<br />
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEUGZmOWZ2end5aWs/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">1 Cheyne Walk</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEWWNBZTZ5TUw0cnM/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">1 Essex Street</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEMks3aUxPQnpnekE/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">10 Oakley Street</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rERG9yQ3ZkWVdFTHM/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">11 Darlaston Road</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rETzIzQnBPQS03NHM/view?usp=sharing"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">12 Well Walk</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEVTRrbUJ2OFZzQW8/view?usp=sharing"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">Store Street
Music Hall, 16 Store Street</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rENnZQSlo3Rl9CS1U/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">14 Dean's Yard</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEamhvTDZMTHVXMVk/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">14 Downing Street</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEelJHR1NYMVpnQ2s/view?usp=sharing"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">14-10 Old Park Lane</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEa204Ny0xaG55ZDA/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">15 Cheyne Walk</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rETDY4ZTNyajNnWU0/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">152 Old Kent Road</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rERXBfTjRhSVYyeU0/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">166 Strand</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rET1p1QmltbWJGemM/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">17 Osnaburgh Street</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rELWNFc2pscURnYWM/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">17 Saville Row</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEdW5jR2dOSkVyTUU/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">185 Tottenham Court Road</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEUnFIZnpReGdjcmM/view?usp=sharing"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">2 Courtfield Road</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rESzZMU2FHMUdnVGM/view?usp=sharing"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">218 High Holborn</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEMWRQSkdfOW1qQUU/view?usp=sharing"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">23 Brompton Square</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEQVl5Y21fUlBXOVU/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">23 King Street</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEZW53Q1ZuOXgtSlk/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">25 Rathbone Place</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rETzhuTkxoM3p6Yk0/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">28 Theobalds Road</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEdkllNUJfRTdqZFU/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">29 Abbey Street (now Buckfast
Street)</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEam9la3c0Vnhua0k/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">29 Fitzroy Square</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEODBkMVdUQXN3Q1k/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">3 Hammersmith Terrace</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rESU8yQnZvbF9WQnM/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">3 Whitehall Court</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEMXdVT19VWWFHc3c/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">32 Ormond Street</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEU3BXOE4wVTNDZE0/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">32 Weymouth Street</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEbWs1T1lUbEhYZkU/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">351 Battersea Park Road</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rESkZwSXNKamJfblk/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">36 Osnaburgh Street</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEYUhVNXB1RWw3T2M/view?usp=sharing"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">37 St. Martin's Lane</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEbk9udnp0bkl1WU0/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">4 Whitehall Court</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEZnlUV2h0M3l2ak0/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">41 Grosvenor Road</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEdUdXUEdXdjlwd1U/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">5 Queen Square</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEOFJPWU85M3JtM2c/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">55 Great Russell Street</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEREJtaDBLY1F0dHM/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">65 Fleet Street</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEOXQwTVNfQkUxekU/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">663 Commercial Road</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rET3pYcXJDTkhrNTA/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">British Museum</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEOHM4RndrdkFrSlE/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">British Museum Reading Room</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEWGxKbWlxTF9mdFk/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">Clifford's Inn</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEV1ZxZXhMQmo3QVE/view?usp=sharing"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">Criterion Theatre, Piccadilly Circus</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEUExrS0M2Q2Y3eHM/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">Crystal Palace Park</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEN2dLT1A1S25QMW8/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">Gower Street</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rELUI4YjN0dU0yQU0/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">Ludgate Circus</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEZkdKLXZTVmRoeGs/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">Old Chelsea Town Hall</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEeEVRV25rWTBnZXM/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">Panton Street</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rESUttMWJFdVJwU28/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Piccadilly (formerly St.
James's Hall)</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEUk50SGxhcmtxOTA/view?usp=sharing"><span style="color: blue; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Ranston Street</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEVXNSR2pPT0JCYWs/view?usp=sharing"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">South Place</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEVkFMRkFtWGpmVkU/view?usp=sharing"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">St. Agnes Place</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEQTZJQ21DQ2M3Q2s/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: blue; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">St. Catherine Street. Theatre
Royal, Drury Lane</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEQUstaE9adzV6UHc/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">St. George's Place</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEQmpMWHZiOEJWSE0/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">St. George's Road</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3CicJE5s_rEUjlteGRidmV1M1k/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">St. Martin's Place</a></span></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-22993836798745867302015-06-02T16:24:00.000-07:002015-06-02T16:24:59.755-07:00SHAW AND ISLAM (I)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">A few days ago, someone posted a question on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/International-Shaw-Society/343991688950382?fref=nf" target="_blank">ISS Facebook page</a> wondering if Bernard Shaw ever "praised Islam or Mohamed in any of his books or statements." It is no wonder someone should ask such a question, because the issue is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1-dKkIu7JQ" target="_blank">all over the Internet</a>. Admittedly, <a href="http://wikiislam.net/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw" target="_blank">very few of these claims are based on known sources or sound research, as some have noted.</a> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">At any rate, there is no gainsaying the fact that Shaw's opinions on Islam are certainly of interest to many, given that I have found more than 450 mentions of words like "Islam," "Mohammed," Mahometan," and "Muslim" - in their various forms and spellings - in Shaw's works and, more importantly, in the pieces of criticism in my database. I will try to bring to light as much material as I possibly can, and I am sure my intelligent readers will be able to draw their own conclusions. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-indent: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="text-indent: 16px;">Well, where do I begin? Perhaps the plays are a safe choice (there will be another entry devoted to his non-dramatic texts exclusively). Generally speaking, Shaw does not go beyond a few scattered cultural commonplaces in the text of his plays, albeit with a pinch of Shavian humor on occasion. The most trite include the phraseologic</span><span style="text-indent: 16px;">al "</span>If the
mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must come to the mountain" (<i><a href="https://archive.org/stream/doctorsdilemma00shaw#page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank">The Doctor's Dilemma</a></i>) and the merely descriptive, like the Egyptian doctor in <i>The Millionairess</i>, who is "what you call a Mahometan" and keeps "a clinic for penniless Mahometan refugees." </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-indent: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-indent: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">More often than not, however, there is a conventional component in the references to muslims and their religious practices. Thus, in the first act of <i><a href="https://archive.org/stream/forpur00shawthreeplaysrich#page/n7/mode/2up" target="_blank">Captain Brassbound's Conversion</a></i>, which takes place in "Mogador, a seaport on the west coast of Morocco," we are reminded that "Mahometans never spend money in drink." Likewise, in <i><a href="https://archive.org/stream/mansupermancomed00shawrich#page/n7/mode/2up" target="_blank">Man and Superman</a></i> Jack Tanner urges Straker to take him to "any port from which we can sail to a Mahometan country where men are protected from women" - but not viceversa, I may add. In this play, like in the rest - as we shall see - most references to Islam are intertwined with other creeds, amidst a general sense of religious relativism, at least as regards the established religions Shaw was acquainted with. Fittingly, it is in the "<a href="https://archive.org/stream/mansupermancomed00shawrich#page/86/mode/2up" target="_blank">Don Juan in Hell Scene</a>" that we find this type of discussion: </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">DON JUAN. That is perhaps why battles are so useless. But men
never really overcome fear until they imagine they are fighting to further a
universal purpose—fighting for an idea, as they call it. Why was the Crusader
braver than the pirate? Because he fought, not for himself, but for the Cross.
What force was it that met him with a valor as reckless as his own? The force
of men who fought, not for themselves, but for Islam. They took Spain from us,
though we were fighting for our very hearths and homes; but when we, too,
fought for that mighty idea, a Catholic Church, we swept them back to Africa.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">THE DEVIL.
[<i>ironically</i>] What! you a Catholic, Senor Don Juan! A devotee! My
congratulations.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">THE STATUE.
[<i>seriously</i>] Come come! as a soldier, I can listen to nothing against the
Church.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">DON JUAN. Have no
fear, Commander: this idea of a Catholic Church will survive Islam, will
survive the Cross, will survive even that vulgar pageant of incompetent schoolboyish
gladiators which you call the Army.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">THE STATUE. Juan:
you will force me to call you to account for this.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">DON JUAN. Useless:
I cannot fence. Every idea for which Man will die will be a Catholic idea. When
the Spaniard learns at last that he is no better than the Saracen, and his
prophet no better than Mahomet, he will arise, more Catholic than ever, and die
on a barricade across the filthy slum he starves in, for universal liberty and
equality.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-indent: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="text-indent: 12pt;">Similarly, in <i><a href="https://archive.org/stream/johnbullsotheris00shawrich#page/n7/mode/2up" target="_blank">Major Barbara</a></i>, Undershaft expresses an equally relativistic idea about faith with special reference to Islam when he claims that "</span>It is cheap
work converting starving men with a Bible in one hand and a slice of bread in
the other. I will undertake to convert West Ham to Mahometanism on the same
terms."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="318" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/oldtamensians/15948838396/in/photostream/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In addition, the social, political, and cultural nature of religion allows for hilarious scenes with a running thread of earnestness "in the womb of time." Take, for instance, the different takes on marriage that three different religions (including Islam) have, as discussed in <i><a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300481.txt" target="_blank">The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles</a></i>: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">HYERING.
Anything fresh from London or Delhi?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">SIR
CHARLES. The same old songs. The Church of England wont tolerate polygamy on
any terms, and insists on our prosecuting Iddy if we cannot whitewash him.
Delhi declares that any attempt to persecute polygamy would be an insult to the
religions of India.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">PRA. The
Cultural Minister at Delhi adds a postscript to say that as he has been married
two hundred and thirtyfour times, and could not have lived on his salary
without the dowries, the protest of the Church of England shews a great want of
consideration for his position. He has a hundred and seventeen children
surviving.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">SIR
CHARLES. Then there's a chap I never heard of, calling himself the Caliph of
British Islam. He demands that Iddy shall put away all his wives except four.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">HYERING.
What does the Foreign Office say to that?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">PRA. The
Foreign Office hails it as a happy solution of a difficulty that threatened to
be very serious.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">There exists, however, a very peculiar element shared by a few of Shaw's plays that is worth commenting on. On two different occasions, characters of Shaw's plays foresee (or live in) a world in which Mohammedanism is the dominant religion. So, for example, Hotchkiss (<i><a href="https://archive.org/stream/doctorsdilemma00shaw#page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank">Getting Married</a></i>) remarks that </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">HOTCHKISS. [...] I happen, like Napoleon, to prefer Mohammedanism. [<i>Mrs
George, associating Mohammedanism with polygamy, looks at him
with quick suspicion</i>]. I believe the whole British Empire will adopt
a reformed Mohammedanism before the end of the century.
The character of Mahomet is congenial to me. I admire him, and
share his views of life to a considerable extent.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Although Hotchkiss's speech ends with the explicit acknowledgement of "the
quintessential equality of all the religions," it is also true that this idea of Islam as the official religion of the world remained in Shaw's dramatic arsenal for decades. So, for instance, <a href="https://archive.org/stream/cu31924012963637#page/n267/mode/2up" target="_blank">part IV of <i>Back to Methuselah</i> (Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman</a>) depicts a futuristic world where the long-lived want to destroy the British Commonwealth (Capital City: Baghdad) before its short-lived inhabitants destroy themselves. The British Envoy is shocked to learn that "the old uns prefer Mahometans." As the Elderly Gentleman explains: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">THE ELDERLY
GENTLEMAN [...] There can be
no doubt, I am afraid, that by clinging too long to the obsolete features of
the old pseudo-Christian Churches we allowed the Mahometans to get ahead of us
at a very critical period of the development of the Eastern world. When the
Mahometan Reformation took place, it left its followers with the enormous
advantage of having the only established religion in the world in whose
articles of faith any intelligent and educated person could believe.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">If I may interrupt my train of thought for a second, reading Shaw makes <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/author-of-book-envisioning-2022-france-under-muslim-rule-says-novel-is-not-islamophobic-9958954.html" target="_blank">many of the so-called "enfants terribles" of literature appear outmoded and conventional</a> - I don't know what the hype is about. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">At any rate, I personally believe that Shaw tries to provoke his audiences when he portrays a muslim future, especially as a counterpoint to the prevailing religious (not exclusively religious) bigotry of his time - an issue that also pervades some of his plays, hence the following exchange from <i><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plays-Political-Geneva-Bernard-Library/dp/0140450300" target="_blank">On the Rocks</a></i>: </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">SIR
ARTHUR. [...] </span>The Archbishop says "Avoid
figures; and stick to the fact
that Socialism would break up the family." I believe he is right:
a bit of sentiment about the family always goes down well. Just jot this down for me. [<i>Dictating</i>] Family. Foundation <span lang="EN-US">of
civilization. Foundation of the empire.</span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">HILDA. Will there be any Hindus or Mahometans
present?</span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">SIR
ARTHUR. No. No polygamists at the Church House. Besides, </span>everybody
knows that The Family means the British family.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARyding%2C_Anna-Lisa_som_Sankta_Johanna_1926_(ur_Henning_1950).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Por Desconocido [Public domain], undefined"><img alt="Ryding, Anna-Lisa som Sankta Johanna 1926 (ur Henning 1950)" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/Ryding%2C_Anna-Lisa_som_Sankta_Johanna_1926_%28ur_Henning_1950%29.jpg/512px-Ryding%2C_Anna-Lisa_som_Sankta_Johanna_1926_%28ur_Henning_1950%29.jpg" width="512" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Needless to say, there is a play where the religious element is so strong and the tone so serious that any reference to Islam should be considered carefully. I am talking, as you have rightly guesssed, about <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/BernardShawsSaintJoan" target="_blank">Saint Joan</a></i>. Towards the end of Scene IV, there is a lively discussion between Cauchon and Warwick that involves several references to the muslims in the Middle Ages. Shaw's natural tendency to anachronism in his historical plays, and his habit of comparing even the most remote places and eras to the British Isles of his own lifetime, would lead anyone to believe that there is a bit of twentieth-century philosophy in what follows. In fact, as we shall see, practically all the notions that have been discussed hitherto can be found in this scene. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">To begin with, Cauchon, the man of the Church, certifies Joan's heresy on the grounds that she does not use the Church as the rightful interlocutor in her conversations with God. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">CAUCHON. [...] <span lang="EN-US">She sends
letters to the king of England giving him God's command through her to return
to his island on pain of God's vengeance, which she will execute. Let me tell
you that the writing of such letters was the practice of the accursed Mahomet,
the anti-Christ. Has she ever in all her utterances said one word of The
Church? </span>Never. It is always God and herself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The idea that Mahometanism may one day be successful because it has a philosophy/creed but not a caste of clergymen seems to be turned on its head here for dramatic purposes, but it remains basically unaltered. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Warwick, the seasoned soldier who has travelled the world, embodies the idea of religious relativism that has previously been discussed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">WARWICK. I
am a soldier, not a churchman. As a pilgrim I saw something of the Mahometans.
They were not so ill-bred as I had been led to believe. </span>In some respects
their conduct compared favorably with ours.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">After these words, when Cauchon reprimands him for his lack of theological knowledge and the boldness of his statement, Warwick once again stands his ground and addresses the question of religious bigotry as the basis for religious conflict - be it the Crusades or any of their present-day counterparts, I guess. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">WARWICK.
[...] I am
sorry you think I must be either a heretic or a blockhead because, as a
travelled man, I know that the followers of Mahomet profess great respect for
our Lord, and are more ready to forgive St Peter for being a fisherman than
your lordship is to forgive Mahomet for being a camel driver. But at least we
can proceed in this matter without bigotry.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">After all, in Warwick's own words, Christendom and Islam "are only east and west views of the same thing."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">If we forget for a moment about the abstract - and sometimes abstruse - concept of religion, Shaw also makes some personal comments about the figure of the prophet Mohammed (Mahomet). Although most of the juicy bits about him belong in the second part of this post, I think it is fair to end this one with the comments included in <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4507778/" target="_blank">Buoyant Billions</a></i>, especially because they frame Shaw's vision of Mohammed. First of all, this play lists the prophet of Islam as one of the "World Betterers" the world has known, with some illustrious company: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">SON. No: you
have always been a model father. But the profession I contemplate is not one
that a model father could recommend to his son.</span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">FATHER. And
what profession is that, pray?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US">SON. One that is always unsuccessful. Marx's profession. Lenin's profession. Stalin's
profession. Ruskin's profession. Plato's profession. Confucius, Gautama, Jesus,
Mahomet, Luther, William Morris. </span>The profession of world betterer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Despite this, we have to take Mahomet as a "righteous man" who perhaps had no other choice but to do what he did: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">SON. Yes;
and when they find them why do they run after them? Only to crucify them. The
righteous man takes his life in his hand whenever he utters the truth. Charlemagne,
Mahomet, St Dominic: these were righteous men according to their lights; but
with Charlemagne it was embrace Christianity instantly or die; with Mahomet the
slaying of the infidel was a passport to Heaven; with Dominic and his Dogs of
God it was Recant or burn.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Finally, in a brilliant flash of Shavian wit, we cannot possibly forget that Mahomet's wisdom may have something very earthly about it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US"></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">THE
WIDOWER. Oh, she is not dead: I let her divorce me. We are now quite good
friends again. But to understand this question it is not enough to have been
married once. Henry the Eighth would be the leading authority if he were alive.
The prophet Mahomet was married more than fourteen times.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In this blog entry, the first of a series of posts on "Shaw and Islam," I have tried to illustrate how this religion and its symbols are portrayed in Shaw's plays. Because of the filter of literary language and dramatic technique, one cannot take the above excerpts as representing Shaw's personal opinions - at least not faithfully. However, they provide a background against which I hope the next set of fragments (from prefaces, letters, speeches, and interviews) will stand out. Let us hope we can shed some light on the subject and leave unsourced voices to the sphere of mysticism. </span></span></div>
</div>
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-33045418232076983572015-05-04T16:31:00.004-07:002015-05-10T14:53:37.214-07:0099% OF THESE STORIES ARE FLAT FALSEHOODS<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Because of that funny thing we sometimes call "coincidence," <a href="http://shawquotations.blogspot.com.es/2015/04/a-child-with-your-brains-and-my-looks.html" target="_blank">one of my latest posts</a> triggered a message by <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ABernard%20F.%20Dukore" target="_blank">Bernard F. Dukore</a>. In it, he remembers having asked Dan H. Laurence about the proposal Isadora Duncan allegedly (most likely, apocryphally) made to Shaw. Laurence, instead of providing a straight answer, used another Shaw quotation regarding how few of the quotations attributed to him were actually true. Bernard (Dukore) wants to know if (and where) Shaw said such a thing - he laughed at the witty response, but forgot to ask for the source. The answer is - should we say synergically - linked to the rumours about whether Isadora Duncan was the mystery lady who had approached Shaw with breeding intentions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Apparently, two different European newspapers (<i><a href="http://www.corriere.it/" target="_blank">Corriere della Sera</a></i> and <i><a href="https://www.weitze.net/antiquariat/31/Organ_der_Sozialdemokratischen_Partei_im_Regierungsbezirk_Zwickau__237331.html" target="_blank">Sächsisches Volksblatt</a></i>) had described slightly different versions of the same conversation between Shaw and an unknown lady (<i><a href="https://www.weitze.net/antiquariat/31/Organ_der_Sozialdemokratischen_Partei_im_Regierungsbezirk_Zwickau__237331.html" target="_blank">Sächsisches Volksblatt</a></i>) or Isadora Duncan (<i><a href="http://www.corriere.it/" target="_blank">Corriere della Sera</a></i>). Given that the Italian newspaper had published the earlier article, Max Hayek had been accused of plagiarism in his German version of the anecdote. Shaw was asked to clear the case, and this is the letter he wrote, reproduced in Dan H. Laurence's <i><a href="http://books.google.es/books/about/Bernard_Shaw_Collected_Letters_1926_1950.html?id=0pVZAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y" target="_blank">Bernard Shaw Collected Letters: 1926-1950</a></i> (pages 16-17): </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.2pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Dear Sir</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span class="characterstyle1"><span lang="EN-US"> You ask me to clear up the case of Herr Max's story Das Kind and
the paragraph in the</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></span><span class="characterstyle1"><i><span lang="EN-US">Corriere della Sera </span></i></span><span class="characterstyle1"><span lang="EN-US">[...] Clearly the
Bernard Shaw story is the plagiarism, and Das Kind the original. [...]<u1:p></u1:p></span></span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> But Herr Max must not blame me. No beautiful American dancer has ever
proposed marriage to me, on eugenic or any other grounds. The Italian
journalist invented the dancer and her proposal; stole the witty reply from
Herr Max; and chose me for the hero of his tale because newspapers always buy
stories about me. </span><span style="background-color: orange; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">99% of these stories are flat falsehoods. 1/2% are half true.
The remaining 1/2% are true, but spoilt in the telling</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">As we all know, it is difficult to believe everything people say Shaw said and wrote. We did not know Shaw would agree with us. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhShxumslilgoy7vaYNXLZzSMzpgxsKFdQ4xnuoj65HDK-OhJlXq-KfcMG4mjkWKoIYUUDZnnDiWe0N1QtEw1DiJq7Bu8fvtKs_epM2Z2DGlw29QPbdxzfhQkXvJbPESswKSJ3upN3sss6E/s1600/Regina_Palace_GB_Shaw_firma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhShxumslilgoy7vaYNXLZzSMzpgxsKFdQ4xnuoj65HDK-OhJlXq-KfcMG4mjkWKoIYUUDZnnDiWe0N1QtEw1DiJq7Bu8fvtKs_epM2Z2DGlw29QPbdxzfhQkXvJbPESswKSJ3upN3sss6E/s400/Regina_Palace_GB_Shaw_firma.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In this case in particular, although Shaw denies either version of the story, it is worth reminding readers that Hesketh Pearson quotes a generic version of this story as having occurred (<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/George-Bernard-Shaw-Life-Personality/dp/0689701497" target="_blank">Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality</a>, </i>pages 310-311). In addition, Shaw admitted to having "made that reply" - though not to Isadora Duncan - in an interview included in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/HEAR-LIONS-ROAR-SEWELL-STOKES/dp/B000WMK97K" target="_blank">Sewell Stokes's <i>Hear the Lions Roar</i></a> (p. 37).</span><br />
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As Chico Marx would put it - in the famous scene in <i>Duck Soup</i> when he impersonates Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho): </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?</span><br />
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4480998081883915005.post-5128638778757895702015-04-22T15:58:00.004-07:002015-04-22T15:58:43.690-07:00THE SHAVIAN (1946 - 2014): SCHOLARSHIP, HISTORY, AND PEOPLE (EXHIBITION). <div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">A few months ago I offered my readers a sneak peek of <a href="http://shawquotations.blogspot.com.es/2014/09/digitizing-shaw-shaw-quotation-database.html" target="_blank">a digitation project</a> that included an almost complete collection of past issues of <i><a href="http://www.shawsociety.org.uk/playreadings5.html" target="_blank">The Shavian</a>, </i>generously donated by <a href="http://www.shawsociety.org/Weintraub%27s-Shaw-Societies.htm" target="_blank">Evelyn Ellis</a><i>. </i>After all the journals (<a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1TMr4TH3_CwpUv10dgpnKZjvf2OjqLIIO3HRbhQjtrZ4/edit#slide=id.p" target="_blank">and attached ephemera</a>) were digitized, a sample of the most interesting issues in the set was displayed in an exhibition entitled: <i>The Shavian (1946-2014): Scholarship, History, and People</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here's the promotional poster: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The exhibition was set up in the main hall of the <a href="http://www.unex.es/conoce-la-uex/centros/fyl" target="_blank">Faculty of Letters (University of Extremadura, Spain)</a>. </span><span style="font-size: large;">I just wanted to share a few pictures I took the first day, right after the display cabinets had just been arranged. I hope you enjoy them. </span></div>
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Gustavohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10358185185712843951noreply@blogger.com0